Siandra's Story Volume I: The Yeremby
by Tanith11
Summary: It's Siandra's first year at Hogwarts and evil deeds are planned-Siandra annonymously recieves a mystifying necklace that is desperately wanted by a strange intruder, and a mysterious old book keeps showing up. Can Siandra stop the evil plot?
1. The Letter

a/n: This is my very first fanfiction story, so be pretty nice.  Right now I'm working on the third one the series so my writing has improved since then.  Also, if you don't have either Lumos, Chancellor. AGaramond, Garamond, Benguait Frisky ATT, Aeolus, Pompeii Capitals or Gallery Caps this might look a bit weird.  Most of my chapters won't be this long, but I needed to get all of Diagon Alley in.  Also, part of the point of this is to guess who Siandra Lorington is.  She IS in JKR's books, but not by that name: in this one she goes by her middle name and her maiden name.

Disclaimer: I'm not going to do all of this _every single time, _so I'll just add to the list.  This time I own: : Millisiandra Lorington (by that name, not who she turns out to be), Cipriana Lorington (Siandra's mother), Kingsley Lorington (Siandra's father), Eva (the cat), Professor Viviana Comora, Resumald, Vanna, Galdrakona, Grindelgop, Tanya, Siandra's house, the plot, and the dialougue, descriptions etc.  All the rest is J. K. Rowling's. 

T H E L E T T E R

S

iandra Lorington could not imagine her family living without magic. Every day they used, at the very least, 10 spells, and a day was considered wasted if they hadn't made at least one potion, and that wasn't counting all the transfigurations they did. Every day Siandra practiced Quidditch, the most popular wizarding sport that was played on flying broomsticks, on the moor they owned and went and had a Butterbeer in the Three Broomsticks, the local eatery and pub. They apparated, that is, disappearing and re-appearing somewhere else with a little pop, everywhere, except, of course, Siandra who was not allowed to yet, because Apparition was a tricky operation and required a license. 

No brooms, no wands, no Butterbeer, and no cauldron, how dull could that be? The only reason that she was thinking this horrid thought, was that her father had gotten a job working undercover in a Muggle (non-wizarding) town to learn more about the ways of Muggles. The only thing that Siandra looked forward to was the fact that she might be attending Hogwarts when the summer was over. 

Siandra Lorington, as you might guess, was a witch. She lived in an all-wizarding town, the only one in Britain, which was called Hogsmeade and loved it there. Her father's full time job studying Muggles, the non-magic folk, meant that for at least a whole year, practically no magic was allowed. The coming year, in fact, was the first time she was really going to school, that was, if she did get the letter. She hoped to go to Hogwarts, the largest and most well-known of wizarding schools in her area. July thirty-first, she knew, was the deadline for sending in mail replying to the invitation letter. July thirty-first, however, was drawing nearer and Siandra had yet to receive the invite. 

You could tell that she was nervous by the way that she kept twisting her short black hair and how she kept taking off her silver oval glasses, misting them, wiping them off with her wizarding robes, and then putting them back on. She hoped that the letter-writers would know to use her middle name, Millisiandra, or Siandra for short, rather than her first name. She much preferred her middle. 

However, her fears were settled because it was half-past twelve when the letter came. It was on thick yellowish parchment addressed in green ink to:

Ms. M. Lorington

The Tallest Tower

11 Greenwood Lane

Hogsmeade 

Sanglier 

The tiny pigmy owl, mail in the wizarding world was delivered by Owl Post, fluttered to not get blown away by the fierce wind by the window as it hooted in a squeaky sort of way to get Siandra's attention. Siandra hurriedly let the minute owl in, however it was pressed so hard against the window that when she opened it, the owl catapulted across the room and landed with a soft splash in her bowl of faeries. The little owl looked very confused, perhaps as to why it was suddenly wing-deep in water full of flitting water faeries. But it soon contented itself with lapping up the water, which caused all the faeries to scuttle into a corner under a large maple leaf.

"Hey!" said Siandra sternly, "Out of the faeries, out, OUT!" The frightened owl whizzed across the room trailing water droplets all over it and landed with a _flump _on her perfectly made bed. A black cat awoke from sleep on the pillow and stared at the owl fixedly. The owl didn't notice, as he was too busy drying himself off by fluffing his feathers. The result made him look much like a static furball. Siandra grabbed the letter from its place, banded to its leg, and turned it over, trying to catch the water that was dripping from it. On the back she saw the half-slit Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry seal stamped in red wax bearing the badger, the lion, the snake, and the eagle all surrounding the Hogwarts letter "H" and bearing the Hogwarts motto "Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus". Siandra was instantly elated. She was going! She felt like dancing around the room and hopping up and down. Who should she tell first? Siandra thought of her parents, who were the only people in the house now, excluding her. She clutched the letter tightly in her hand and started rushing down the many flights of stairs. 

"Mom! Dad! I GOT THE LETTER!" she yelled while still two floors away from the dining room. "I'M GOING TO HOGWARTS! CAN YOU SEND THEM THE OWL BACK NOW? CAN WE GO TO DIAGON ALLEY TOMORROW? PLEASE MOM AND DAD!" She was still screaming as she arrived in the dining room where her mom and dad were calmly eating their French toast.

"Oh, hi Mom, hi Dad," she said, trying to forget that she had completely lost her mind while running down the stairs yelling. She took five big long deep breaths and thought, _calm yourself. _

"Missy, what happened to 'quiet I'm trying to transfigure my mouse'?" asked her dad jokingly, looking up from his breakfast.

"But _Dad, _if you'd been listening, you'd know that I've just been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry.  Thank you for not calling me by my first name, though."

"I still don't know why you insist on being called by your middle name when you have a perfectly lovely first name. I think that your first name sounds like a sorceress!" praised her mother, looking motherly at Siandra and standing up from her chair to start clearing the table. Obviously she hadn't heard a word that Siandra had just said, otherwise, Siandra felt, she'd be congratulating her and writing a return owl, but her good mood was not going to be spoiled today, even by her parents who refused to call her Siandra without putting up a good fight.

"It's a Greek goddess and I'm not Greekish — erm, Greek. And of course _you _like it because _you _chose it! Can you please write a return owl Mom, please?" said Siandra eagerly, trying to change the subject quickly to cover up her poor rebuttal. Her mother looked lovingly at her and then walked over to the study to get some nice fancy quills and parchment to write the return owl. She returned with a tall bottle of some silvery ink that she usually saved for party RSVP's and a luxury eagle feather quill. 

"My, you are eager today honey! Okay, I'll write it, but open it up first, for Merlin's sake!" Siandra had probably never felt this eager in her life and her hands trembled slightly when she slit the seal on the envelope. Inside she read:

HOGWARTS SCHOOL

_of _ WITCHCRAFT _and _WIZARDRY

`

Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE

(_Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorcerer, Chief Warlock,_

_Supreme Mugwump, International Confederation of Wizards.)_

Dear Ms. Lorington,

We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted

at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please

find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1st. We await your owl by no

later than July 31st.

Yours Sincerely,

Professor Viviana Comora

Professor Viviana Comora,

_Deputy Headmistress_

"Now that I've read it, will you write the letter, _please_?" asked Siandra. She was quite sure that the coming year was going to be extremely interesting and exciting. It was going to be much more interesting than when she took Pre-Wizarding School from a little old witch who lived in someone else's old basement and taught them how to do sums in their heads. 

"Wait a minute," interrupted her father. "You are _sure _you want to go to Hogwarts and not Resumald?"

Resumald was the local private school. Hardly anyone went there anymore unless they were snobbish and were obsessed with Divination. Siandra thought that Divination was a bit thick sometimes. Her father had lived nearby it in the days when it was a respected academy and still thought it was a rather good school to send his daughter to.

"I am _sure,_" she said with such authority that even her father couldn't argue with her. Siandra's mother sighed and delicately unscrewed the top to the tall inkbottle, dipped her luxury eagle feather quill in the silvery purple ink, and started writing in small rounded letters. Siandra peered over the top of the letter so she could see what her mother was writing. 

"You're using my first name," she remarked. "I don't want anyone to call me that at Hogwarts."

"But dear, maybe you'd like to start using it again!" said her mother hopefully. 

"No," ended Siandra. Something in her voice told her mother that she couldn't be convinced so she grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment and wrote Siandra's middle name.

"You can use my full middle name if you like, just don't include my first name at all," she said. Her mother wrote "Millisiandra Lorington" on the sheet of parchment.

"That's better," said Siandra.

After a few minutes with Siandra reading over her mother's shoulder, her mother waved a hand carelessly at Siandra. 

"Stop hovering over me. I can't write an owl with you like this!" said her mother annoyingly. Siandra walked resignedly off to her room at the tallest tower. She was feeling very gleeful, though, because nothing could spoil this extremely good day. She started whistling blithely and skipping around and (because this was definitely not normal behavior for her) her parents seriously thought that she had gone mad. 

Siandra was busy getting ready for Hogwarts. Her parents owned a small private library, which was a tower that housed books. It was located in what Siandra referred to as 'the book tower'. She had spent many long hours in it when she was a little child, and she still had many fond memories of it. She walked up to the tower and opened the door. A current blew out and whipped through her hair, playfully tossing it around. Rays of sunlight mixed with floating dust steamed in from the open windows above the towering bookcases. There was a square of wood on wheels stationed beside the door. Siandra hopped onto it and zoomed around the edge, whirling in and out of the letters of the alphabet. She was looking for 'H', because she had intended to just read up about Hogwarts, but something else caught her eye. It was _Levitation for Beginners _by Martin Melvin. She could read up on all the classes that she was going to take! She thought about this, and what parts specifically, and SMACK. She had run into the wall. After a bit, she gingerly got up, massaged the top of her head, removed an extremely large _Medieval Dictionary of Magical Terms _from on top of her arm,and noticed that a pile of books had fallen off of her stomach when she got up. The scooter must've knocked into a shelf when it shot out from under her. The shelf above her was marked 'T'. _Well, _she thought, _T is for transfiguration. _So she gathered up the books on her stomach and carried them up a few winding flights of stairs. She passed through other rooms of books until she reached the very top room in the tower. It was a beautiful room. An 'architectural marvel' as her mother would say. It was a small and round with blue and green tiles arranged in nesting circles on the floor. In the middle there was a round, thick, red, Turkish throw rug with tan fringe around it. Cushy, lime green couches curled around the circumference. There were large windows facing each other with thick glass that reached all the way from the floor to the ceiling. The places that weren't occupied by windows were instead covered by prim wallpaper with a linear sort of design featuring flowers. There was one picture on each of the walls. They were both the same size and had a small, simple, stained, dark wood frame. One was a close-up of a rosebud. The other was a picture of great-great aunt so-and-so in this room, wearing her Hogwarts uniform. She kept smiling, and trying to cast spells, because in the wizarding world, the pictures were moving. Siandra hopped onto one of the couches, sat cross-legged, picked up a book, and began to read. 

* * *

Many days passed as Siandra's excitement built. On the evening before the day that they had planned to go to Diagon Alley, she decided to actually go to bed early, in stead staying up reading, so that she would wake up extremely early the following morning.

The next day was bright and sunny and, Siandra felt, a perfect day to go to Diagon Alley (although she probably would have felt the same about any other day). She woke up at about five o'clock in the morning and romped into her parents' bedroom with Eva, her long-haired black cat, held in her arms, and set her down on her mother's head. The cat obeyed Siandra and jumped around on her parents a little (enough to make her father say sleepily, "Quidditch practice? At this hour?") and then leapt promptly out the window to hunt for jobberknolls, small blue speckled birds that lived in Hogsmeade and were a delicacy to Eva. 

Siandra was down in the kitchen making breakfast rolls for herself and her mother and father so they wouldn't have to waste precious time making breakfast. The pan sizzled as she prodded it with her wand, trying to make it light. She soon gave up trying to do it by willpower and looked in the kitchen's many cupboards looking for a magical cooking book. In the top right corner she found one called _Ballad of the Magical Breakfast – Breakfast-Making Charms _by Clevia Morning. 

After she had worked out most of the charms in the breakfast making book, she ended up with three, slightly burnt breakfast rolls. 

"MOM! DAD! BREAKFAST IS READY!" she yelled up the stairs to her soundly sleeping parents. Then she sat down in the wicker chair and began to devour her own breakfast roll.

At eight o'clock (when she had finally decided that her parents were victims of the Drought of Living Death) her father walked sleepily down the stairs followed closely by her mother.

"Good morning dear and oh!" her mother had suddenly noticed the breakfast rolls that sat neatly on the table. "Thank you dear! But really, you could have burned yourself! You haven't learned cooking magic yet!"

"I was careful Mom," Siandra said in a bored sort of voice that said only too clearly that she was not in the mood for lectures. "But I did use your cooking book, you know, _Breakfast Roll Ballads _or something like that. Anyway, I did do fine, so you have nothing to complain about." 

It was rather silent as her parents ate their breakfast; perhaps they felt that if they opened their mouths that they would start choking. After breakfast Siandra gathered all of her books in her bag, to read if she got bored. Her parents had finished their food and seemed to be frowning at an empty flowerpot.

"No good," said her mother gravely to her father, "All our floo powder's gone. Sorry, Siandra, we're going to have to apparate to Diagon Alley to buy some more, sorry." 

Floo powder was yet another way that the wizarding community traveled. It was good for Siandra, because she was not allowed to apparate yet. If their Floo powder was out, then Siandra couldn't go for quite a long time! Siandra suddenly dropped all the books that she was carrying and ran upstairs. In merely seconds (her parents strongly suspected that she had apparated despite the fact that she almost always obeyed the rules) she was back with a little pouch filled full of a glittery substance. 

"Oh, our little Mil — " said her mother fondly but was cut off by Siandra.

"SO," she said loudly. "We'd better get going!" Siandra stepped near the fire, took out a pinch of the Floo powder from her pouch, sprinkled it into the fire then she herself stepped into the fire and said clearly, "To Diagon Alley!" and she disappeared in the smoke. Siandra was used to this. She tucked her elbows in and had beforehand, put her glasses in her pocket, so that they wouldn't get cracked on the journey. Floo powder was an interesting way of traveling. You traveled by fireplaces and grates. Siandra saw a whirl of them as she rushed past, turning and turning, like she was on a roller coaster. But Siandra had been doing this for quite a long time. And then suddenly, it stopped. Siandra brushed some soot off of her clothes and stepped out of the fireplace that she had gone into. She was in a rather dimly lit room. It must be the Leaky Cauldron, an eatery, pub, hotel, and concealing the entrance to Diagon Alley, the wizarding main shopping center. _Oops_, she thought. She must've been really excited, because she'd gotten off at the wrong fireplace. She hadn't done that in quite a while. It was only one grate too far anyway. The room had a high ceiling with a skylight, a bar at one side of the room, and scattered tables all around. Siandra smoothed her hair and stepped up to the bar.

"Er…Tom?" she asked timidly. A man came out from the shadows. He was a little tall, wore a green and black robe set, and looked as though he was coming upon middle age. He wore a grin.

"What would you like today, Miss Lorington?" he asked.

"A tall lemonade with ice to go," she said smartly. "And d'you think that this will help me get through to Diagon Alley? I seem to have gotten off one grate early."

Siandra brandished her beginner's wand that she usually used. 

"Hmm…dunno, really. I never tried. When I were little…." he continued telling Siandra about what they did with wands when he went to school as he made the ice lemonade. He took a plastic cup and poured some lemonade in about halfway. Then he put some stuff that looked like snow on the top and mixed it in. With a flourish, he added a long plastic spoon, a small straw, and, for some odd reason, a paper umbrella. "Here ya go," he said, handing the drink to Siandra who sat on a stool to reach it. Siandra fingered the umbrella uncertainly. 

"Tom? What's this for?" she asked. "It's awfully hard to eat this when it has this thing and the cup is so skinny."

"Have to keep up with the times!" Tom protested. "Old McGinny in Bubbling Brews has them in almost all of his drinks!"

"It's a cold lemon ice, though. I think that you're supposed to put them into the tropical-sounding drinks, you know, give it a 'bit of flavor'," explained Siandra.

"Oh, well, you can have it as a souvenir," he said, taking it out of the lemon drink, wiping it off, and folding it up and putting a tie on it.

"Thanks!" Siandra took the umbrella, put it in her pocket and grabbed her drink, while cheerily waving good-bye to Tom. 

She sipped her lemonade as she came out behind the Leaky Cauldron. It appeared to just be a dead end. There was only a brick wall, a trashcan, and a couple of dingy wooden boards. Siandra, though, whipped out her beginner's wand and started counting bricks from the trashcan. She counted three up and two across and touched the brick that she came to three times. The brick jumped in its place. It started quivering and wriggling and a tiny opening, about the size of a pinhole appeared in the center. Every millisecond the hole widened and widened until Siandra was faced with an archway big enough for a giant. She stepped through the arch and arrived in Diagon Alley. A cobbled path deviously turned and twisted out of sight as narrow little shops lined the edges, crammed and piled on top of each other. There was a suction-like noise as the bricks were pulled back together. Outside the nearest shop, there were stacks of cauldrons, glinting in the sunlight. Quality Cauldrons must be having a sale. A woman wearing light robes and her hair tied up in a bun came outside armed with a black feather duster and started cleaning the cauldrons. Then she spotted Siandra. 

"Oy, Siandra!" she yelled. 

"Hey, Vanna!" yelled Siandra and started walking towards the cauldron shop to get out of the crowd traffic.

"Here for school supplies?" Vanna asked, looking up from the cauldrons and shielding her eyes from the sun.

"Yep," answered Siandra.

"Getting a new cauldron, then, are you?" Vanna said slyly. Vanna had a way of turning any conversation into one about cauldrons. Especially a need for new cauldrons. 

"Probably. Mine's got green algae growing at the bottom. Plus, it says a standard size on the supply list and I think that I've still got a three quarters," Siandra explained.

"So remember, shop at Vanna's Cauldron Supply for quality with quantity!" Vanna said, jingle style with the flashy smile. "Plus we're having a back-to-school sale!"

"Let me guess," said Siandra with a smile. "Buy one get one free?" 

"Yup! And all of my cauldrons are new and shiny. You won't find a rusted one in the bunch! Well…except for that one in the corner," she nodded to a cauldron shoved in the corner that was oxidized so much that it looked almost all green and it was partially covered in lumpy rust. "But that one," she puffed herself up importantly. "Is a genuine alchemist's cauldron!"

There was an awkward silence.

"Well anyway," said Siandra. "I'll be back when I've found my parents and some money. 'Bye, Vanna!"

Siandra waved good-bye to Vanna and walked briskly along the congested street. When she came to the grate where she was originally supposed to come out, she saw her parents waiting on a bench nearby. 

"Siandra!" her mother called. Siandra hurriedly parted herself from the crowd and ran to her parents.

"Sorry," she said, once she'd reached them. "I guess I got excited and got off a grate early. I landed in the Leaky Cauldron."

"We apparated so that's okay," explained her mother. 

"I was thinking," said Siandra's father, more to Siandra's mother than to her. "Why don't we let her go around and buy her own stuff. She's old enough to."

Siandra smiled hopefully.

"Okay," said her mother. She started digging in her purse and extracted a handful of golden galleons. "Now," she looked eye-to-eye with Siandra. She was getting into lecture mode. "All I want this to be used for is school supplies. _Nothing_ else. If you want to buy something special for yourself, then I suggest you go to Gringotts and get your own pocket money out. And I want the change back here. _All _the change." She gave Siandra a stern look. Siandra returned it with a cheery smile. She waved good-bye and ran off to Gringotts, the wizarding bank, stuffing her money into a flower-patterned satchel. At last, after a few minutes of parting the crowd, she came to a tall white marble building. It was at least four stories high, with two white columns by each major window. It was higher than any of the little shops looking mouse-like beside it. There was a flight of stairs leading up to the main entrance. There were small, simple fountains on either side and the large bronze door was flanked by goblins wearing red suits. Perfectly spaced and polished silver letters over the main entrance read:

Gringotts Wizarding Bank

Siandra smiled and stepped up the stairs. She had never been to her vault alone before. Usually her parents showed her I.D., her key, and had her wait in the cart while they scooped up a sufficient amount of pocket money for her. Come to think of it, Siandra had never really seen the inside of her vault before. She started climbing the low steps. When she was close enough, the goblins bowed and opened the doors for her. She gave them a cheery nod and they did not return the sentiment. _Well, _Siandra thought, _It__ is in their nature. They're not humans, they're supposed to be more clever than friendly. _Next there was a pair of silver doors, with yet more goblins to show them inside. Siandra saw a poem engraved in curly letters on the silver doors, but she was too excited to bother reading it. The goblins opened the silver doors and Siandra was let into a beautiful room. It was all perfectly clean, glinting marble. There was a long polished wooden counter at which there were quite a lot of busy goblins examining valuables, handling deposits, showing people to their vaults, and directing those wishing to withdraw to their doors. Above Siandra there were at least four glittering chandeliers perfectly shiny and free of cobwebs. There was an extremely high ceiling and at the very top there was a large stained-glass rotunda. There were numerous doors leading out of the main room in which goblins escorted people to their vaults and such. Between all the doors was a sconce. Siandra supposed that they lit them when it got dark outside. She glanced around and saw that all of the booths handling withdrawals were full. She sat down in a seat near an Amulet and Talisman counter. The goblin at it had thick dragon hide gloves and was holding a beautiful necklace made of glittering opals with the gloved hand and examining it.

"Worth over a thousand galleons, I should think," the goblin appraised. "Maybe even a hundred thousand — or more! High security, definitely, Mr. Burkes. This is one of the twin necklaces! They're very powerful and made by Galdrakona. The other one to the set is missing. That makes it even more valuable. I'd say — ''

But Siandra didn't get to hear what the goblin would say because one of the other goblins at the withdrawal counter yelled "NEXT, PLEASE." Siandra grabbed her bag and scurried over to the counter. It was so high that she had to stare straight up at the goblin's face when he leaned over to see her.

"A, er, withdrawal please," she said timidly.

"Obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't be at my counter. What is your name, little girl," he commanded, disgustedly. 

"Millisiandra Lorington," she replied.

"Now do you have your key or are you one of the little Muggle-borns that I have to bring to the key room?" he asked. At this moment Siandra would have definitely not liked to be one of the little Muggles that had to be shown to the key room. 

"Have…key…somewhere…" she said, digging in all her robe pockets. She brought up something cold and metal and showed it to the goblin. It was a silver key. 

"Are you wasting my time?" he asked coldly. "Lost Keys Department is over there!" He pointed to a counter where a bunch of bedraggled wizards stood in line with worried looks while feverishly searching in their robes' pockets. "All Gringotts keys are gold!"

"Oh," Siandra said, blushing. That was the key to her portable jewelry drawer. She searched through dust bunnies, crumpled receipts, and finally produced a tiny golden key engraved with the words:

M. Lorington

Vault 114

She put it on the goblin's counter. He picked it up with his long fingers and held it curiously up to the light, as if trying to detect a fraud.

"It seems to be all right. GRINDELGOP!" he suddenly yelled. Siandra jumped. An extremely small goblin (or maybe it just seemed to be because the other one was sitting at the lofty desk) came rushing over. 

"Take Miss Lorington to her vault, and no silly business this time!" he commanded, handing Grindelgop the golden key. 

"Yessir!" he saluted and marched off, Siandra trying to keep up with him. 

The goblin at the withdrawal counter shook his head at the retreating Grindelgop and muttered something under his breath. Then, "NEXT, PLEASE!" 

The goblin lead Siandra to a platform levitating from the ground up to the second level. Siandra and her goblin waited for it to come down again and then they jumped onto it. She turned and faced the rising sheer wall. When the top came, Grindelgop jumped off smartly onto the second level, but Siandra had been preoccupied and was left on the platform as it started to go down. 

"Help!" she said as it started to fall. 

"Don't worry…SIR," Grindelgop consoled. "It'll come back up…sometime." 

Luckily, a crowd of wizards wearing robes bedecked with golden stars just then stepped onto the platform as it rose up yet again and this time, Siandra kept an eye on the rising wall and jumped as soon as she could. She landed safely and watched the wizards float up to the third level. Grindelgop lead Siandra to a door very near the levitating block, took out a jingling ring of many keys and inserted one into the lock on the door. There was a little click and the door creaked open. It was drastically different from the marble main interior of Gringotts. This was like walking into a cave. Torches lined up in rusted metal brackets gave off a flickering light and you could hear the subtle drip of water. 

"Into the cart, SIR!" the goblin commanded. Siandra hopped into the cushy leather seats and put her arm around her valuables. Grindelgop hopped in and the cart suddenly whooshed down the ribbon of a silver track stretching out in front of them. Siandra jerked but soon settled into the rhythm of it. It was quite enjoyable, actually. It sped over little hills and turned rapidly around hairpin curves. Another cart whizzed by on another track with a goblin and two sisters (probably new to the wizarding world) sitting in the back. 

One had her hair flying out behind her and was yelling "WHEEEEE!" with her arms in the air as if she was riding a roller coaster. The other wasn't taking it so well

She was a bit white and was yelling, "SAFETY BAR! WHERE'S THE SAFETY BAR ON THIS THING?! I NEED A SAFETY BAR…." at the top of her lungs. 

Siandra glanced around at the scenery. There was a big inky black lake in a ravine beside her. Stalagmites and stalactites were scattered around.

"DUCK, SIR!" yelled the goblin as one passed over her head. The 'sir' thing was really starting to annoy Siandra. 

"IN STALAGMITES AND STALAGTITES WHICH IS ON THE GROUND?" yelled Siandra over the din.

"M IS FOR MOUND AND C IS FOR CEILING, SIR!" the goblin responded, while staring straight forward.

"THANKS FOR THE TIP, BUT I'M FEMALE!" Siandra shouted back.

"Oh…then…let's see…that'd be…YES MADAMOISELLE!" he responded promptly after apparently looking something up. 

The cart suddenly slowed to a stop. Grindelgop hopped out smartly out of the cart and grabbed a kerosene lamp from beside him that Siandra hadn't seen before. Siandra stepped out and held onto the cart for a moment until her feet were steady again. The first time she had ridden and not done that, she almost fell flat on her goblin (after that he was definitely not happy). Siandra looked down onto the goblin's lamp, which was swinging and casting a circular glow on the ground in front of them. They reached a vault and Siandra could see through the dimness that it read Vault 114 in large curly letters. The goblin inserted the golden hey into the door and turned it cautiously, grasping it in his long-fingered hand. There was a noise like steam hissing and the door swung open, revealing her money: moderate piles of golden Galleons, silver Sickles, and little bronze Knuts. She scooped some into a little pouch separate from the one that held her parents' money. She looked around a bit, and noticed that it wasn't the back wall that was gold, it was coins. It appeared as though the vault behind hers was separated by some latticework. She vaguely wondered whose vault it was, and how they got so much. 

Grindelgop saw her staring. 

"That's yours too, but your parents don't want you using it just quite yet, MISS!" Grindelgop kindly explained. Siandra jumped and briefly widened her eyes. 

"Hehe…. Didn't know that goblins made such good jokes! You nearly had me there…hehe," Siandra laughed weakly. She stepped back into the cart and rode swiftly out of Gringotts.

After she exited the sets of doors, she clutched her bags and looked around. It was hard to decide where to go first. She glanced at her school supplies list and realized that the first thing there was her uniform. Folding up the list and placing it in her pocket, she sucked the last of the lemon ice and threw it into a nearby trashcan. Then she happily walked away through the crowd, keeping her eyes open for Gladrag's Wizard Wear. 

It was a large, old, brick building, with their store's name in raised granite letters. A cheerful bell rang as Siandra opened the glass door and stepped inside. A plum woman wearing a pink and white striped dress under a lacy apron came running up to meet her. 

"Hello!" she said delightedly. "We've got a special! We now carry transparent robes made specially for ghosts! Now you can have fun in the afterlife, because you won't get bored with the same clothes! I'm Tanya and I'll be your helper today!"

"Thank you, Tanya. But I'm currently still living. If I become a ghost, I'll be sure to stop by here to get my party wear!" she responded.

"Here for school supplies, then, dearie? Yes? Right this way!" the woman responded, not really giving Siandra a chance to answer yes or no. She clutched Siandra's arm and pulled her past racks of clothes into a little enclosure marked, "Fitting Room". Tanya sat Siandra on a little stool. "I'll be right back, then, with the special measuring tape!" Then she bustled off. Siandra looked around at the whitewashed walls and the plain cream-colored molding. She was sitting on a small wooden stool in the very center of the room, and her feet were on a dull, green carpet. She wondered what the 'special' measuring tape was, as the lady came back in. She smiled at Siandra, and threw her measuring tape into the air. About halfway down, it stopped and pulled itself back up and measured all on its own. It seemed to measure every part of Siandra, and then it started doing things that were very odd indeed. It took the length of her back and put it down close to the floor. Then it took the length of her outstretched arms, cut the measurement in half, and extended it from the floor. 

"May I ask what this thing is up to?" Siandra asked. "All I want is plain, black Hogwarts robes!" The lady, who had been standing happily watching in the corner of the room with her arms folded, suddenly jumped in surprise. 

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "You must be human then! Sorry about that, er, little misconception!" She grabbed the tape out of the air, which was currently bending her leg length into a circle, and put it into her apron pocket, patting it gently. Siandra was about to ask what exactly the lady had thought that she was, but decided that she'd rather not know. Instead, Tanya brought out an ordinary measurer from the opposite pocket and measured the length of her arms, around her head, and from her neck to her feet. "You'll be about a size two, then, with a few adjustments," Tanya exclaimed and rushed out of the fitting room to get some size two robes and check them out. She came back excitedly with a winter cloak and two changes of black robes. Siandra took them from her and one by one tried them on while Tanya put pins in them and sewed little spots up with fine black thread that needed adjusting. Once that had been done, Tanya brought out another bundle of clothes.

"These are for under your robes. Here's a black dress, black tights, black tank top, and black pants, and black shoes. The dressing rooms are over in that corner. I'll be your cashier when you're ready," Tanya explained and walked away to help someone else. Siandra chose a dressing room and tried on all her apparel; it all fit perfectly. She folded them back up and brought them to the counter where Tanya charged her forty-four galleons and wrapped it up in a pretty white box with a bow and put the package in a brown paper bag. 

Next on the list was a wand. Well, the best place for wands was Ollivander's, of course. Her family had been coming there for generations and Siandra wasn't even sure that there was another wand shop in Diagon Alley. She briskly walked over to the small shop, squished between a restaurant and an Astronomy shop. In worn gold letters at the top, it read:

Ollivander's

Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B. C.

She opened the door, made of stained dark wood and heard a soft tinkle in the back of the shop. A man with weathered-looking hair slid from the back of the shop on some sliding steps. 

"Ah," he said. "Is it the young Miss Lorington?" Siandra nodded her head mutely and set her things on a faded chair in the corner. "My father remembered fitting Cipriana when she was young. Going to Hogwarts, just like you. An easy fit, he told me. Yew and unicorn tail hairs, ten inches."

He brought out a measuring tape like the one that Tanya had used on her before she figured out that she was human. It started measuring in odd places. She thought that Mr. Ollivander might be mistaken too.

"I am human, by the way," she said in what she thought was a nice, helpful tone. Mr. Ollivander glanced at her funnily.

"I wouldn't sell a wand to your otherwise. No non-human creature is permitted to carry a wand, it's in clause three of the International Code of Wand Use!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, er, never mind. I was, er, thinking of something else," stuttered Siandra. Mr. Ollivander walked back to a shelf that looked as though it was made with the little boxes. He looked at them for a minute. His hand hovered over a green box with gold-colored frills on it and "Ollivander Wands" written in the center. He delicately pulled it out and blew the dust off of it. It came off in a cloud. Resting the wand on both of his hands, he handed it to Siandra. Siandra stuck out her wand hand (her right hand) and clasped it in her fingers and looked at Mr. Ollivander.

"Birch and unicorn hairs, eleven inches. Pretend that you're casting a spell, then!" he prompted. 

Siandra swished the wand around saying, "_Wingardium__ Leviosa_!" A vase in front of her levitated and followed her wand. She was going to place it right back where it was first, but she accidentally dropped it on Mr. Ollivander's head. He caught it deftly. 

"I said _pretend_! Don't actually do a spell!" he said indignantly. 

"Oh, sorry," returned Siandra. She waved the wand around in the air. A sudden heat came through to her fingers and a shower of silver sparks came out of the end. 

"My, my, that was a quick fit! It must run in the family," he commented and put the wand back in its box and wrapped it with tissue paper. He handed it to Siandra and she put it into her bag with the clothes and paid Mr. Ollivander seven gold galleons. 

Since there was an Astronomy shop extremely close, Siandra decided to get her telescope and Astronomy equipment. Inside, the ceiling was painted with star constellations and an elderly witch sat at the wooden counter equipped with scales and such, and helped Siandra find a nice, new, shiny collapsible brass telescope and a moon chart. She paid the witch and went on the Flourish and Blotts to get her course books. This time the clerk there was a man with wavy brown hair. She picked up a brown basket at the front of the shop to put her books in, and walked in, gazing at all of the books. One that particularly caught her eye was called _The Family of Felines _by Mara Zelinsky. It had a cute kitten on the front rolling around and playing with a piece of string. It was moving, of course, as were all the pictures in the wizarding world. She skimmed through it and then dropped it into her basket, then walked up to the man at the counter. 

"Can I help you, Miss?" he asked her.

"Yes. I'm getting my Hogwarts course books…" she trailed off intently. The man reached under the counter and pulled up a pile of books tied together with some twine.

"The Hogwarts Package. Would you like me to hold it and that lovely kitty book here while you get your quills and ink?" he asked.

"Yes, please," Siandra responded as the shopkeeper moved the pile of books to the end of the counter and placed _Family of Felines _next to it. The inks and quills were in the back of the shop. Siandra tipped a couple bottles of nice black ink for classes into the basket, and a box of different colors for drawing and such. Resisting a pretty glass pen, she got a bundle of ordinary feather quills (she always wondered where all her quills ended up at so she got a lot of them normally). Her eye caught a clear, rectangular bottle in the corner with pretty pink shimmering liquid inside. The top was sealed in black wax with a crest on the top. There were foreign words on it. Nearby was a small, lighted sphere. She found out that the bottle contained invisible ink and the globe was to reveal it with. Without hesitation, Siandra tipped it also into the basket. She went back to the counter and paid for it all, remembering to include her own money for the book and the invisible ink. 

Next was The Apothecary, a large wooden building that housed ingredients, potions, and many things of the sort. Siandra remembered to breathe through her mouth because of the stench, but stayed in there quite a while in order to look around at the many interesting things. The nice saleslady at the counter gave her a discount on the standard potion set (included ingredients, crystal phials, dragon hide gloves, and brass scales) and soon the only thing left on her list was a cauldron. That'd be Vanna's, of course. 

Walking along to the end of the street, Siandra pushed by the crowd to get through. Vanna was still outside polishing some cauldrons and she waved to Siandra when she saw her coming. Siandra walked to the opening of the shop.

"I'm here for my school cauldron!" she announced happily. 

"Oh!" exclaimed Vanna. Come right on inside!" Vanna almost skipped inside the shop as she led Siandra. "Here is our display of solid gold cauldrons. Now which size will you be wanting today?"

Vanna was pointing to a shelf where there were shining identical cauldrons sitting primly on the edge.

"I actually need a pewter one. Standard size two," Siandra explained.

"Oh, but if you buy a gold one then you get one free! It's part of our yearly back-to-school sale!" she said persuasively.

"On my school list it says _pewter. _And what would I actually do with two gold cauldrons?" asked Siandra, examining the row below the golds, which held the pewter ones.

"You could sell it and then you'd see the full benefit of the Quality Cauldron Supply program," explained Vanna.

"No, I don't think so. I think I'll have that cauldron," said Siandra, pointing to an easily accessible pewter one. "Would you mind getting it down for me please?"

"Oh, _alright._"

Vanna got a folding ladder from one side of the shelf and she brought it down carefully. 

"And can I pay you now?" asked Siandra.

"Oh!" replied Vanna, seeming surprised that Siandra wanted to pay. "But you haven't seen our selection of stirrers! Or maybe you want a pewter collapsible one? Or one that's self-stirring? Come and look at this beautiful stirring stick!" Vanna clasped Siandra's arm and lead her over to a display with different stirring methods. Vanna was looking particularly at a jewel-studded stirrer in the corner. "Don't you want _that _one, Siandra, instead of this just plain wooden one?" Vanna asked, as if she was absolutely sure that Siandra would want the bejeweled. 

"It's nice," Siandra admitted. "But I just don't have — '' she paused to look at the little white price tag dangling down and resisted the urge to whistle shrilly. " — three hundred galleons on hand at the moment. I'll settle with the wooden one." 

Siandra bought the plain wooden stirring stick and the pewter cauldron and met her parents at the grate, to do Floo powder back home. Siandra took a pinch from the little drawstring bag (after giving her parents the change) and stepped into the grate, said the address to her house, and the whoosh swirled her up and sucked her into the network of fires. She could barely hear the two little pops as her parents apparated into the living room over the roar of noise. She was spinning faster and faster and — _flump_. She landed sprawled on her parents' carpet.

After a long day, they all settled down. Most of Siandra's room was in boxes for the move and it looked rather depressing. Her Galdrakona poster had been rolled up and stuffed into a long white box and there were pin holes on her walls where pictures had been taken down. Sitting on a white box up against her bed, she started to prep for Hogwarts. She got out her textbook for potions class as Eva, her black cat leapt onto her lap, curling up and purring loudly. 

Downstairs her parents could hear her, though softly, reciting the most crucial ingredients in some potion, the full moons this year, and counting down the days on her calendar until September the first, when leave Hogsmeade and the new Muggle house behind and be off, going to wizarding school for the first time.


	2. The Hogwarts Express

A/N: This is more normal length for my chapters.  I usually don't post so soon, but NO ONE IS REVIEWING!!! (hint, hint).  Well…not that many people.  

I am already aware of the following:

Molly & Arthur were not at school the same time as Lily and the marauders — I know this, but that would make Molly about sixty when she had Ginny, which is just not right, even in the wizarding world.  I crossed that part out in my fourth book.

There are only five people per dormitory — there doesn't _have to be.  Just because there are in Harry's time, doesn't mean that it's that way for everyone.  JKR says that there are about a thousand students in Hogwarts.  _

That was long.

DISCLAIMER: The ONLY new thing I own is Mindy the Hippogriff.  All the rest either I already said, or it belongs to JKR, Warner Bros., Bloomsbury, Scholastic, blah, blah, blah. 

Angie: THANK YOU for REVIEWING!!!  At first I planned to get one out every week, but I wanted to get it back onto the second of first page so people'd see it.   

T H E   H O G W A R T S   E X P R E S S

T

he next few weeks passed by in a flurry.  Her faeries were packed with her books, her wand, and her other school things into a large trunk. Eva lodged in a wicker cat carrier that she had just bought, and Siandra fussed over how much tuna she should give her for the trip.  Her cauldron was cleaned, and her bed and covers packed in moving boxes.  Mindy, the family hippogriff (an animal that was half horse half eagle), was found a care-taker.  Mr. and Mrs. Lorington seemed reluctant to have her go and kept putting extra little packages inside her trunk until her books were forced to be packed inside her cauldron.   

            When September 1st finally came, her bags were so heavy that they had to be levitated into the car that the Ministry had provided for them for her Dad's undercover project.  Her parents were also taking a load of boxes to their new Muggle house that day, so that was the reason that they agreed to drive her to London.   Otherwise, she would've just walked to Hogwarts, because she lived in Hogsmeade and the train stopped at Hogsmeade Station to let the students off.  Her father packed a bag of books about Muggles to read and a bunch of chocolate frogs.  During the ride to King's Cross Station, her father sat in the back seat with Siandra and they flipped at the Muggle book. 

            "And that is a pen in penholder," said Siandra, reading the description of what looked to her like a lump of iron.

            "My cousin gave me one of those," remarked Mr. Lorington, "I believe that I use it as a doorstop."

            "Oh, look, Dad! We're nearly there!" said Siandra, pointing out the window at a train station ahead. And they were.  King's Cross was coming closer and with each foot of the way, Siandra was getting more and more excited.  Finally, as they pulled up into the parking lot (Mr. Lorington had a lot of trouble trying to force sickles into the parking meter) Mrs. Lorington hopped out of the car and went to look for a trolley to use to push Siandra's trunk.  Five minutes later, she ran back pushing an overlarge trolley and carrying bags of popcorn.

            "We need to eat Muggle food!  We can't be seen with chocolate frogs!" she said, out of breath because she had been obviously running the whole way. "It's called popping corn." Siandra took her bag and looked inside.  It all seemed completely stationary to her.  

            "Now come on, Siandra's only got three minutes until the Hogwarts Express leaves, we'd better run!" She then grabbed Siandra's hand and pulled her through the crowded station towards the barrier between platforms nine and ten, still dragging Siandra's trunk and pets behind her.  She dragged them right through the barrier and they were suddenly in a station where the scarlet Hogwarts Express was blowing its whistle.  

            "You've got to run, honey! Good-bye, we'll send you loads of owls!" said her father.

            "Oh, good-bye, honey!  Oh, and here's a little bag of money to spend on the train and on Christmas presents," said her mother hurriedly, pressing a blue bag of galleons into Siandra's hands.  Siandra clutched the bag and ran to the one open door left and hopped on.  While still hanging on to the handle of the door, she waved good-bye to her parents as the train sped her out of their sight.  When she could no longer see her parents, she slammed the door and levitated her things up on the overhead compartment and walked down the aisle in search of empty seating compartments.  It seemed as if there were none left at all and prefects in the first few compartments barred her out. She hoped that she wouldn't have to stand in the aisle the whole way to Hogwarts.  

She finally came to the last compartment, opened the door, and said absently, "Is anyone sitting here?" She then looked down at the compartment and blushed because there were obviously people sitting there, two girls, both with red hair.  

            "Yes, we're here, but you can sit here too. There's quite enough room," said the girl with pretty green eyes, scooting over to make room for Siandra.  

            "Thanks, what's your name?" asked Siandra, sitting in the space that the girl had made for her.  

            "I'm Lily and this is — " she gestured to the other girl who was looking out the window at the countryside.

            "Molly," she said, turning her face from the window and looking at them. "What's yours?"

            "Well, my full name is Millisiandra, but I'm usually called Siandra or something like that," said Siandra.  "That's my middle name anyway."

            "What about your first name?" asked Molly.

            "Well," she blushed and wished she hadn't told Molly and Lily that Siandra wasn't her first name. "Um…er…" 

            "Well, you don't have to tell us right away if you don't want to.  I was wondering, are you both all-magical?"

            "I've got a second cousin who's an accountant, I think, but I'm not quite sure.  We never talk about him," said Molly.

            "I think that I'm all magical," said Siandra, for the first time wondering about this, "but my dad got a job working undercover with muggles so I'm going to have to go live with them."

            "No magic at all?" asked Lily, and Siandra nodded grimly, "That's worse than I have now!  I was ever so happy when I got the letter, I didn't know anything about magic or Hogwarts, or anything!"  

A plump woman opening the compartment door one hand on a large cart that she seemed to have pushed up to them suddenly interrupted Lily. 

"Anything off the trolley?  It'll be a long time before the feast!" she said. Lily's eyes widened as she looked at the large wooden cart overflowing with licorice wands, Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, chocolate frogs, cauldron cakes, and pumpkin pasties and all three of them pooled their money and bought some of everything.  

When the witch with the cart had cleared the hallway, Lily picked up the first package of chocolate frogs and read the back.

"Collect trading cards of famous witches and wizards while eating our delicious chocolate frogs," reeled off Lily, "So, there's a card with each chocolate frog? Wow!"  She unwrapped the box and popped the dark frog into her mouth. "Mm…and they're good too!" She unearthed the wizard card from underneath the chocolate crumbs and remarked, "Oh, look, I've got Galdrakona…" she paused as she read about her, "What?  She found out about Apparating…don't they mean apparitions?" asked Lily

"No, they're right.  Apparating is a way that wizards and witches travel.  Just disappear one place and re-appear another place with a little pop!  My parents do it all the time. But you have to take a test and you have to be _of age,_" said Molly like she thought that the age restriction was too strict.  Soon Lily was obsessed with the chocolate frogs and the cards and she had Merlin, Circe, Morgaine, and Agrippa. 

"Wow, I didn't know that Muggles knew about Nicholas Flamel!" said Lily, examining her newest wizard card, "I sure never knew about him until now!" 

"Hey," Molly said, while opening her chocolate frog box, which contained Albus Dumbledore as the wizard card, "Do you know what house you'll be in yet?" 

Lily had a confused look on her face as Molly told them that she wanted to be in Gryffindor and Siandra came to her rescue, "When you get into Hogwarts, you get sorted into different houses depending on your different qualities.  They each have separate common rooms, and you can earn points to get the house cup.  The Muggle book my dad got says it's a little bit like cottage." 

"College," Lily corrected her. Siandra didn't know what college was anyway.  She thought that she had read something about samurais in it, but she thought that she'd better not mention that to Lily because she didn't want to embarrass herself more.

"What I don't get is how they sort people.  Do you just stand in front of the headmaster and tell him about yourself?  I hope it's not some sort of test with magic! And in front of the whole school!" said Siandra quickly, turning to Molly.

"Oh, don't talk about that, Siandra!  You're making me nervous already.  No, I don't know and I wish it didn't have to be in front of the school." Molly did look very nervous and they all looked a little jittery.  

Just then, a voice blared through the train, "In five minutes we will be unloading all students onto the platform and you then will be directed to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry.  Please leave your baggage on the train and it will be taken to the school shortly."  

"B-But I don't know any magic! How am I supposed to be sorted?" stammered Lily.  

"It's fine, I'm sure that Dumbledore has thought of that, b — but I'm really nervous too!" reassured Molly.

"We'd better change into our school robes, don't you think?" said Siandra.  She wanted to keep her mind on anything but the sorting. Lily pulled down the shades on the windows and they silently changed into their inky black Hogwarts robes.

A sudden lurch knocked Siandra onto the red seat of the train as it stopped on the dimly lit platform.

"It — it's time to go, right?" asked Molly, hearing the muffled footsteps sounding in the aisle outside their closed compartment door. 

"I think so," replied Lily in a determined sort of voice and set out for the sliding door and opened it quickly. All three of them quickly joined the stream of people flooding past the door and stepped outside the train into the cold night air.  Lily, Molly and Siandra joined a huddle of confused first years waiting outside the door pulling fur-lined robes around their heads.  

Suddenly, a figure wearing a robe made completely of rabbit fur parted the crowd of older students and shouted above the hassle, "Any first years?  Come over here, I'll lead you to Hogwarts," he yelled, as a few scared-looking first years advanced nervously to him, "Come on, my name's Ogg, by the way." A throng of anxious first-years followed Ogg as he led them by a glowing lantern through the path that looked like it was going through a thick forest. Most of them were looking at their shuffling feet and not talking at all.  Siandra thought that it was a good thing that they didn't have to take their bags with them, because her legs already felt like lead. After a long time, when they were all about to collapse from exhaustion, there came a sudden corner.

"And there's Hogwarts," said Ogg as he rounded the corner.  A bundle of excited first-years followed him and as they turned the corner, let out rather strangled 'ooh's and 'ah's, forgetting their fears for a few seconds. And as Siandra turned the corner, she really did see a breathtaking sight.  A towering castle adorned with turrets and towers and gleaming windows stood across the swirling black lake.  Ogg lead the crowd to the edge of the lake where quite a lot of little boats were perched unmoving on the edge.  

"Hop in these, four per boat is all they can hold, they're quite small," directed Ogg, as he jumped into the front one.  They all picked a boat; Siandra's boat was also occupied by Lily and two black-haired boys she didn't know.  As soon as everyone was in a boat, they started sailing smoothly across the pitch-black lake.  Soft rain poured down on them and wind whistled across the lake.  Everyone was silent, looking at the castle of Hogwarts looming ever closer.  

There was a slight jerk and the boats bumped against the underground harbor of Hogwarts. Shakily, the first-years climbed out of the boats, and Siandra, feeling very nervous, stepped behind Ogg as he knocked on the towering wooden door.

A/N: I know that there's no real plot yet…it will appear soon though. There WILL be a plot; it's just coming. 

Please Review!!!!

Thank you.


	3. The Great Hall

A/N: Back to my normal length.  This one's kind of like the first Harry Potter…they get sorted, hear the hat, are really nervous, get in the dorm and stuff.   Some people who've read this say that everybody is a Gryffindor.  This is NOT true.  I just don't show _everyone being sorted, only the people that will be talked about a lot.  Review please!!!!!!!!!_

DISCLAIMER: I own the sorting hat song, the girl's dormitory description, the dialogue excluding that with Harry Potter terms, other descriptions, Laura Abbott, and Elizabeth (Betty) Noita who also belongs to my friend Serena.  The rest either I already said or it belongs to someone else.      

THE GREAT HALL

 A very pretty witch with long brown hair opened the door.

"And these are the first years, Ogg? Good then, I'll take them from here.  You may go back to your gamekeeping duties," dismissed the witch, motioning for them to come along.  The hall was lit with brightly flaming torches every few feet with a flagstone floor.  But Siandra and the rest of the first years barely had time to notice this, as they were all in varying degrees of fright.  Siandra was shivering, even though she was barely cold and in front of her, a rather plump boy was jumping every time he heard a voice.  The witch lead them into an empty corridor outside of the high double doors where chattering voices were coming from.  Siandra supposed that the rest of the school was in there.  The witch stopped in front of some small doors and waited until all of them had settled.

"When you enter the great hall, you shall be sorted into your houses which are Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff.  Further instructions will be given upon your entrance.  You shall wait here until I come back to get you. Also, you should note that I will be your transfiguration teacher this year.  My name is Professor Comora and I am head of Slytherin house."  Professor Comora left quickly through the doors and was followed by silence from the first years.  Trying not to keep her mind on the sorting, Siandra looked around at the students surrounding her.  Most of them were wide-eyed and shivering but a greasy-haired boy at the back of the line was looking somewhat calm. She glanced behind her and looked at a brown-haired boy looking rather nervous also whom she thought looked very cute.  He turned back towards the doors and Siandra blushed, as he knew she had looked.  

Fortunately, Professor Comora came to her rescue as she ushered them through the doors into the Great Hall.  The ceiling was inky black, flecked with stars amidst hundreds of floating candles.  Siandra seemed to have lost the feeling in her left leg.  Professor Comora stopped in front of the line and quite a lot of them bumped into each other as the line stopped at the front.  Siandra noticed that most of the older students were staring at a spot in front of the high table where Dumbledore and the other teachers sat, and she stared also, hoping to see something. 

Out of a side door, a short old wizard came hurrying to the center cradling an old hat and dragging a four-legged stool behind him. He stood the stool up in the center and (with some difficulty) managed to perch the hat on top of it.  

Siandra didn't see what was so special about the hat.  Dirt was clumped around its many patches and it sat lopsided on the stool.  That was, at least, until she saw a large rip beginning at the corners and it opened wide, like a mouth, and began to sing.

_I've served this place for many years_

_And seen the minds rush past, _

_I may look tattered and real frayed,_

_But I am built to last.  _

_Yes, your task is but a simple one,_

_To each try me, the hat,_

_I'll see what kind of thoughts you have_

_And base your house on that._

_If you have your thoughts on bravery,_

_You're a Gryffindor at heart,_

_If you're smart and have intelligence_

_Then Ravenclaw's your part._

_If you are loyal and you're true_

_Then to Hufflepuff you'll run,_

_And for all the Slytherin students,_

_They will have ambition._

_So drop me over your head now,_

_I've never been wrong yet,_

_A little voice inside your mind_

_Will tell you what you get!_

There was a roar of applause as the hat finished and relief washed through Siandra.  Just trying on the hat would be a lot better than having to do magic, or some sort of test. 

            Professor Comora stepped in front of it, a roll of parchment in her hands and said, "Now, when I call your name, you will step up to the stool and try on the hat.  When you are sorted, you will sit at your house tables." She paused as she slid her quill down the list. "Abbott, Laura," she announced as a rather short girl with blond hair ran up to the hat and jammed it onto her head.  A few moments pause, then, "HUFFLEPUFF!" yelled the hat and Laura ran off to the Hufflepuff table amidst cheers from the occupants. 

"Annast, Molly!" Molly scuttled forward and nervously dumped the hat on her head and then she had got her wish.

"GRYFFINDOR!" the hat shouted.  

"Black, Sirius!" 

One of the boys that had shared Siandra's boat walked forward and slipped the hat over his head, which fell over his eyes.  

"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. 

"Evans, Lily!" Lily walked shakily forward and gently placed the hat on her head.  She sat there for a little bit before, "GRYFFINDOR!" 

Siandra noticed that sometimes, the hat seemed to be gesturing while the person was being sorted.  She supposed that the hat was conversing with them. There weren't many people left before her, she watched nervously, her palms starting to sweat. 

"Longbottom, Frank!" became a Gryffindor, then, "Lorington, Millisiandra!"  Siandra walked shakily up to the stool, sat down, and dropped the hat over her head.  It immediately fell over her eyes and all she could see was the black inside of the hat. 

"Hmmm…" said a little voice by her ear. She supposed that this was the hat. "You're smart, you love magic…" 

"Of course I love magic, I'm a witch, aren't I?" Siandra said and blushed as she realized that she had said that aloud to the whole Hall.  

"So you're practical, but you're also brave, and willing.  You do like rules, and you're smart and a teensy bit ambitious.  You've got a nasty taste for adventure, but I don't know if you'll ever use it considering your engagement with rules.  But I think I'll put you in GRYFFINDOR!" Siandra ran happily to the Gryffindor table and sat with Lily and her friends after handing over the hat to "Lupin, Remus!" The Gryffindor table was busy congratulating her and Remus that when the Ravenclaw table cheered Siandra realized that she had forgotten to watch the boy behind her get sorted. "Noita, Elizabeth!" also became a new Gryffindor and Siandra clapped loudly as Elizabeth chose a seat by her.            

With quite a lot of people, the hat seemed to decide at once.  However, "Pettigrew, Peter," sat on the hat for the longest time before the hat made him a Gryffindor and had to give the hat to "Potter, James!" 

Perhaps it had something to do with just being very nervous, but Siandra suddenly felt very hungry and wished she was eating a nice chocolate frog as she watched "Snape, Severus!" the rather calm boy at the back of the line get sorted into Slytherin.  

Finally, (after "Weasley, Arthur!" got sorted into Gryffindor) the line of first years waiting to be sorted was empty and at the largest chair in the center of the high table, Dumbledore stood up.  The Hall suddenly silenced.  

"There are a few of start of term announcements that I would like to make this year before we devour the delicious feast that we have prepared. First of all — " 

On the right side of Siandra, Lily poked her and asked what the silver glint at the right door was and Siandra explained that it must be the Hogwarts ghosts.  Obviously, some of Dumbledore's speech went unheard to her, something about somewhere being out-of-bounds, but Siandra was unlikely to go anywhere suspicious anyway, or so she thought. 

"Secondly, as many of you may have noticed, a new tree has been planted on the edge of the grounds.  This tree is called the Whomping Willow and viciously attacks, with its branches, anyone who gets near it. Therefore, we would advise you not to go anywhere in its whacking range. And third, our caretaker, Apollyon Pringle, would like to remind you that you are not allowed to be out of bed in the corridors past 9:00 unless you are taking Astronomy.  Thank you and enjoy the feast!" And with these words, all the golden platters in the hall filled with delicacies to fill their empty stomachs.  

Siandra dug into a plate full of spaghetti and piled it onto her plate along with about ten peppermint humbugs that no one else seemed to be eating.  While she helped herself to some butter-drenched breadsticks, the talk turned to their classes.

"I heard that we're going to make love potions this year!" said a sandy-haired girl across the table. 

"Somehow I don't think so, I thought that they were banned!  But, maybe we'll get to take electives!" 

"No, maybe we'll get to change stuff into gold in transfiguration!"

"No, silly, that's alchemy.  I don't think that they teach that at Hogwarts.  If they did then galleons wouldn't be worth anything anymore!" remarked Siandra although she had always wondered about changing things into gold in transfiguration. 

The rest of the feast seemed to go by in a flash and she finished her lavish buffet feeling very full.  At last, when everyone had finished their feast, Dumbledore stood up to direct the new prefects to take each house to their dormitories.  Siandra and the rest of the Gryffindor students followed a boy called Marcus Vector up through the doors and headed up through many flights of stairs to the seventh floor where a large portrait of a very fat woman in a pink silk dress asked them for the password. 

"Haxa," said Marcus and the portrait swung open for the students to be admitted into a large cozy room full of squashy armchairs all seated in front of a blazing fire.  "Now the boy's dormitories are that way," he pointed left, "And girl's are there," he pointed right to a winding flight of stairs carpeted in rather worn red velvet. 

Sleepily, Siandra followed the rest of the girls up the winding staircase and took the first branch off to a room with large mahogany doors labeled: FIRST YEAR GRYFFINDOR STUDENTS. Lily pushed open the double doors and Siandra saw a beautiful circular room.  Wine-red satin drapes that were on each of the many French windows were held back by pearl curtain holders. The carpet was very fluffy with a pattern of mermaids in an ocean.   Each ebony four-poster bed had faeries carved into the headboard and had red velvet (like the on the stairs) curtains with golden tassels to pull them around the bed.  Each bed had a large oak dresser and a quaint oval nightstand with legs fashioned like trees and a single small drawer.  Their bags were waiting by the side of the high bed and a bed warmer was pushed under the silk sheets that had a night sky pattern on them and a map of the small part of Hogwarts that they would be attending was carefully placed on top of their fluffy blue pillows.  Each bed also had a canopy with wooden owls on the tops of the four posts.  Siandra changed into her night robes and pushed herself down under the thick blankets and immediately fell asleep.


	4. Quills into Clocks

A/N: Pretty long chapter this time.  Talks about all of their classes and stuff and you get to meet the teachers.  Please REVIEW!!!!!! 

DISCLAIMER: I own Leanne O'Flaherty, Claire Spinnet (well…she obviously exists but not specifically as I make her), Professor Jigger (he's also mentioned briefly, but not as a professor), Professor Elena Pimea, Anna Wilkes (it says in the fourth book that there was a Death Eater whose last name was Wilkes, but that's all), Professor Ritznan, Gardenia Ritznan, Professor Moira Rusalka, and the planets Hera, Zeus, and Regiza belong to me and Serena. All the other stuff either I already mentioned or it belongs to others. 

That was a REALLY long disclaimer.

R & R!!     

Q U I L L S   I N T O   C L O C K S

               Siandra woke up early in the morning, anxious to start her classes along with the rest of her roommates, and it was only in the morning that she actually figured out who they were.  She shared a dormitory with Lily Evans, Molly Annast, Elizabeth Noita (who insisted on being called Betty), Leanne O'Flaherty, (the sandy-haired girl that she had sat across from at the feast), also Claire Spinnet and a very pretty girl named Gina Rosmerta.  

               It turned out (after they were half and hour late to breakfast) that the map of Hogwarts did not help out at all in the matter of finding their way.  Actually, it complicated the matter as it did not show the whole of Hogwarts, and all of the doors kept blinking on and off, all 142 staircases they knew about kept blinking on and off and changing around, and the classes were not clearly labeled.  Betty and Siandra discarded their map in a suit of armor on the eighth floor as to not confuse themselves.

               When they finally arrived back in the Great Hall, panting, they felt very silly as all of the other Gryffindors including James Potter and the rest of the first year boys were seated there already looking perfectly content.

               "Here, they left some schedules for you. And where have you been? Your eggs are getting cold, we've been waiting for you forever!" said a concerned third year girl.

               "Oh, never mind that, now where are those schedules?" asked Siandra, embarrassed that they had taken so long. 

               The third year girl pointed to seven empty plates with small slips of parchment by them.  Siandra sat down and looked at her schedule which read: 

  


Day

**9:00 – 10:00******

**10:20 – 11:20******

**11:20 – 12:40******

**1:00 – 2:10******

**3:00 – 4:00******

Monday

**DADA**

**Transfiguration**

**LUNCH**

**Potions**

**Charms**

Tuesday

**Herbology**

**Charms**

**LUNCH**

**DADA**

**Magic History**

Wednesday

**DADA**

**Magic History**

**LUNCH**

**Transfiguration**

**Herbology**

Thursday

**Potions**

**Herbology**

**LUNCH**

**FREE**

**Charms**

Friday

**Transfiguration**

**Magic History**

**LUNCH**

**FREE**

**FREE**

**Astronomy will be held Wednesday night at ****Midnight** in the tallest tower.****

               "I've got Defense Against the Dark Arts first, what do you have?" asked Siandra, turning to Lily who was reading her own schedule.  

               "Yes, I think that all the first years in Gryffindor have the same classes…" Lily paused to peer over the edge of James's schedule, "Yes, I was right," she said as she confirmed that he had Defense Against the Dark Arts too.  

               After they had eaten their breakfast, they hurried off to Defense against the Dark Arts. It turned out to be in a secluded classroom on the fourth floor and it took almost a full half an hour to find it, which was much more than the passing time allowed. Siandra dreaded the thought of being late to her very first class, any class for that matter.  However, (much to Siandra's reputation) most of the class was late.  At the head of the classroom a teacher with short blond hair, and deep red robes who also turned out to be the Gryffindor head of house.  

               "My name is Professor Pimea and I will be teaching you one of the most important classes that you will learn at Hogwarts: Defense Against the Dark Arts. I will start by taking roll…" 

               They didn't do anything that was particularly in their first class with Professor Pimea; mostly just heavy reading from their books. 

After lunch, they attended Potions class on the second floor with a smart; rather young teacher named Professor Jigger.  He immediately admonished them never to fool around in his class because in potions, things could go seriously wrong.  Then they went to work in pairs trying to make a simple potion to get rid of Horklumps, a very invasive plant-like animal that took over gardens.  Siandra was paired with Betty and they used Betty's cauldron and Siandra's potion making set to measure out Streeler venom and weigh Puffapods.  Peter Pettigrew, the boy who was in front of Siandra during the sorting, had been paired with James Potter, which, in Siandra's opinion, was a very good thing because it seemed like Peter didn't know how to do much.  By the end of class, most of the people had managed to come up with a rather iffy version of the potion and consequently were given loads of homework on it.  As they tried to find their way back to the common room, the first years started wondering about the Whomping Willow.

"I wonder why they planted it.  I mean it's dangerous and it doesn't even have any use!" said Molly.

"No idea," replied Remus, bending down to pick up a book that he just dropped.  

"Maybe it's hiding something!" added Siandra.  

She thought that it was probably the only use for something so violent and sudden.

"No! I mean, I don't really think so.  Maybe it has a use like its bark is used in potions or something.  That must be it," said Remus.  

Siandra wasn't convinced that the Whomping Willow wasn't guarding something.  Anyway, how could any teacher get near enough to that thing to take the bark from it?  

By the time that they had reached the Gryffindor common room on the seventh floor, they were all very tired and it was already half past two.  Siandra dropped her books in the large purple armchair in front of the fire (narrowly missing someone's owl) and collapsed with exhaustion in the chair next to it.  

            "Hey," Siandra realized, "We just survived our very first morning!" 

            There were a few unenthusiastic "yeahs" from some of the other chairs as Siandra pulled out her homework (a potions pre-test) and started trying to remember all the names for aconite. 

*  *  *

            On Wednesday they also had their first Transfiguration lesson with the Slytherins. It turned out to be a great surprise.  

              Most of the class was a little late, as was common in the first week of school, and the professor of the class, like most of the other teachers on the first week, didn't reprimand them.  Instead, she waited until they were all seated and then began her speech.

              "Now, some of you may think that transfiguration is an _uncomplicated, unnecessary _art, but you will find, that in my class, you will each find your own way in transfiguration. Now, I shall pair you up and I will figure out how much you have read over the summer, rather like a pre-test.  You will all hand in your books and yes, Mr. Snape?" 

            Severus had put up his hand, and whispered something to Professor Comora.

You may certainly not keep your textbook! I am in shock that a student would ask me such a question!  No student no matter who they are is allowed different attention from the rest.  Ten points from Slytherin, Snape, and I shall hope that next time you use better judgment than that to count on a teacher helping you cheat!" 

               Snape was also in shock.  Any other Slytherin alumni's considered themselves benefactors of the Slytherin house and it was practically unknown to him to have a Slytherin teacher _take away _points from Slytherin house, especially the head of house.  He was paired with a Slytherin girl named Anna Wilkes and they weren't having much luck turning their seagull quill into a clock.

              Siandra was paired with Gina Rosmerta.  Most people weren't having much success with their quills; they were just prodding them with their wands and, occasionally, setting fire to them and having to get Professor Comora to put them out with a spurt of water from her wand.  Siandra tried to concentrate, which was very hard to do with feathers bursting into flame all over the classroom, and, when the lesson was over, managed to turn hers into a perfect pocket watch and helped Gina, Sirius, and James transfigure theirs.  By the end of the class, they remained the only people who had done so.  Snape, James and Sirius were pleased to see, was no exception, having managed only to turn a pair of quills into rather feathery-looking clock hands.  Siandra just wished that she had time to help some of the other Gryffindors with theirs.  

              Peter, for instance, who kept shouting, "El Clockis!" at the top of his lungs and then looking disappointed when he saw that he still had a sad-looking quill resting on his desk. When they had all returned what they had produced to Professor Comora and she had graded them, she announced to the class what she thought of their results.

              "Only four people have managed to turn their feather into a satisfactory clock! All of you, except those who managed this test perfectly, will write an essay on this subject!  Those who have earned themselves a break from homework include Gina Rosmerta, Siandra Lorington (ooh, it's antique), Sirius Black, and James Potter." 

              Snape slumped down on his charred desk.  It seemed to Siandra that him and James Potter's friends were practically rivals already.  She wondered what made them dislike each other that much so quickly.  

*   *   *

Herbology was in the greenhouses outside of the castle. Lily, Siandra and Claire all walked together to it.  There were five greenhouses there, but there was a bright-red-haired witch with large plastic goggles herding people into the first one.  It was very humid inside.  The top was an onion dome with made with greenish-tinted glass.  It had a high ceiling and there were rows and rows of plants behind the small area that was marked off for seating. The Professor's desk was at the front of the greenhouse.  It had a little pool built into it, which housed water lilies.  There was a very pretty fountain near the door.  Claire splashed her face with the water from it.

            "Whew!" she said, fanning herself with her schedule. "I'm sure hot!"

            They stopped dunking their heads in the stone fountain when the Herbology professor came into the class. With their hair dripping onto their hot black robes ("Oh, why did they ever choose to assign us _black _robes in the _summer?" whined Claire) they quickly scurried into their seats.  The desks were set up in twos.  Siandra sat at a desk with Lily and Claire sat right next to her in a desk with a curly brown-haired Hufflepuff girl that had an overly wide smile on her face.  _

            "Now, class," said the Professor, standing in front of her desk.  "I am Professor Ritznan!  In this very greenhouse you will learn the secrets to nature and magic and how they mix!  I see that some of you are very hot in here and have taken certain measures!" she looked at Siandra, Lily, and Claire pointedly.  She seemed to say everything with an exclamation mark. "It'll feel nicer in the cooler months!  Feel free to bring bottled water and fans next lesson!  Now, let's see…it looks like the temperature is thirty degrees! Perfect for fairy lilies!"

            The class groaned.  

            "I will hand out a bowl to you each!  Fairy lilies are very fragile and like to cling to things!  Your job is to transfer the lilies into a larger bowl, with more room to grow!  All right, work in groups of four with the table to the right of you, I'll pass out the bowls…" 

            Siandra was paired with Lily, Claire, and the Hufflepuff girl.

            "Let's start working! I know a lot about these plants!  I can help you three out!" said the Hufflepuff girl.

            "Er…are you two related?" Claire asked, waggling her finger between the Hufflepuff girl and Professor Ritznan.

            "Yes!" she said, "How did you know?!"

            "Ah…" Claire said, "Guessed."

            "Oh, I forgot to introduce myself!  Gardenia Ritznan!  Nice to meet you!" she said, sticking out her hand.  They all shook it in turn. "I'm all wizarding!  How about you?! And what are your names?!"

            "I'm Lily," said Lily, "And I'm not all wizarding."

            "I'm Claire, and I'm all wizarding."

            "My name is Siandra, and I'm all wizarding."

            "Good!" said Gardenia.

            The fairy lilies turned out to be quite hard work.  They wanted to stick to the bowl and the twigs in it and absolutely did NOT want to go and be in a bigger bowl.  Not only that, but because they were so frantic for something to cling to, they clung to Siandra, Lily, Claire, and Gardenia.  The first time this happened, it was something of a surprise.

            "AHHH!" screamed Lily. "It's leeching me!" 

            "Don't worry!" consoled Gardenia.

            "Why?  The thing is attached to me!"

            "Just pull it off!" said Gardenia as though this was something that one learns in second grade.

            "Oh," said Lily, already embarrassed about the fuss she made.  

            After they had transplanted all of the fairy lilies, they went over to the fountain to rinse off their hands and then hurried off to Charms.

*   *   *

Siandra woke up.  It took her a moment to figure out exactly why.  Then she saw that Lily and Claire were both prodding her.

              "It's not time for breakfast yet!" she moaned, and scooted back under her covers.

              "Astronomy!" hissed Lily.

              "All right then…I'm coming…." she moaned groggily. 

              Siandra got up and dressed silently into her black Hogwarts uniform.  It was a little sweaty from the Herbology lesson that afternoon, but she put it on anyway and just put a small black dress underneath.  She started poking the other residents in her dorm.

               "Molly, come on…" she coaxed.  Molly was refusing to get up.

              " — but — but, it's still dark!" she protested.

              "So? It's supposed to be!  Astronomy, remember?  It's at midnight in the tallest tower.  It's eleven fifteen now and you _still have to change!"_

              "Oh, _fine." Molly said grumpily as she pulled herself out of bed.  _

              Meanwhile everyone who was up was having difficulty with Leanne.  She wouldn't even wake up enough to talk clearly.

              " — I must've picked up the jelly slugs…" mumbled Leanne.  

              "YES, YOU MUST'VE, NOW WAKE UP!" yelled Gina.

              Leanne stayed fast asleep under the moon and star coverlet.

              Lily ripped the covers off of her.  Still no reaction from Leanne.

              "Mm…those acid pops sure are good…" trailed off Leanne.

              All at once the girls decided to jump heavily on Leanne's bed.  There was still no response from Leanne until Betty accidentally on purpose fell over Leanne's feet.

              "NO, I HAVE NO OWL TREATS!" yelled Leanne as she jumped out of bed. "Oh," she said, awake now, "It's you.  I'll get dressed for breakfast now."

              "Astronomy," corrected Claire.

              "Okay, then, Astronomy class."

              Once they were all changed and ready, including Leanne, they ascended the long flight of stairs to the Astronomy tower. 

              "Ah…" panted Leanne, "I wish we could ride on those suits of armor.  I know they can walk, why can't we just ride on them?"

              "I'm no common mule!" protested a tinny voice projecting from a suit near the right wall.

              "I didn't know they could talk!" said Leanne to the armor.

              "I didn't either," it said. 

              Finally they arrived, panting, at the highest tower.  They were, to their great disappointment, paired with the Slytherins for Astronomy.   

              The astronomy room was very pretty.  It had a high domed ceiling, which showed a velvety black sky with silver stars twinkling on it.  It looked exactly like it could be real, but it was not, and you could rotate it by the press of a silver button shaped like a full moon near the doorway.  The doorway was arched upwards and was decorated with twinkling stars around the arch.  The doorknob was in the shape of a golden five-sided star.  It lead out to a circular stone deck with gargoyles stationed at the sides and about seventy-four telescope stands stationed around the edges.  Inside it was decorated with quite a lot of silver.  A silver lion head had an open mouth that showed the moon in it.  Across from that was a coiled up snake, which held Betelgeuse in its coils.  The Ravenclaw eagle held North Star in its talons and the Hufflepuff badger stood on the Big Dipper and sniffed it.

              Siandra took her seat with Lily, Claire, and Betty since the desks were in fours. The only desk not fully occupied was James's gang's desk, because Remus was absent.  Then the Astronomy teacher came in.  She was very pretty and had shimmering black hair past her waist.  She had the deepest blue eyes that Siandra had ever seen; they looked almost purple.  At first she thought the teacher was rather scary.

              "I am NOT a night owl," Leanne said rather loudly.

              "Good," said Lily, "Because it's morning."

              "Hello, class," she said.  She had a very flowing voice. "My name is Moira Rusalka, but you may call me Moira.  Now, start off, let's see if anyone knows all the planets in order."

              Lily immediately popped up her hand.  Here was something that you did not need wizarding experience for.

              "And what is your name?"

              "Lily Evans." she answered promptly.

              "And you will tell us the planets, young lady?"

              "Yes.  They are as follows: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and the recently discovered Pluto."

              There was a snort from across the room.  It was Snape.

              "And?" he said, gleefully anticipating the answer.

              "Well everyone knows that there are only nine planets in the solar system," said Lily.

              "And now everyone _knows that some people are __stupid enough to not open a book before they come here."_

              Lily turned bright red.

              "Aw, shut it, you." James said, chucking a telescope lens at Snape.  It hit him on the hand.

              "OW!" he said, "_Professor!" he whined.  _

              "James, we do not throw precious science objects at hard places where they might break.  That is a point from Gryffindor.  Snape, we do not make fun or provoke people.  Ten points from Slytherin."  

              James settled in his seat.  He had decided that he definitely liked Moira.

              "Now, for everyone's information, after the first nine planets Lily so correctly named for us, there are Hera, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Regiza.  

              Full moon tonight, then, let's get out and do some moon gazing!  I trust that you've brought your telescopes? Yes?  Chop-chop, then!"

              She hustled the students out through the arched doorway and onto the large deck.  The moon was very bright and glowing that night.

              "It's a harvest moon," she told them, "Even though it looks bigger, it actually isn't.  Harvest Moon is a good time for moon gazing, but bad for stars because of all the light.  Focus your telescopes in on the moon and study the craters.  After you have, get your quills and inks out and draw a picture of it for me.  Study this for the rest of class.  Your homework is to name and describe the four closest stars to us.  To get us started, what is the nearest star to us?  Can anyone name it?"

              "The North Star!" shouted Leanne.

              "Don't be silly, it's Alpha Centauri!" corrected Anna Wilkes.

              "No," said Moira, "The closest star to us is our own sun, now get to work, homework is due next Wednesday!"

              "Oh…" said quite a few people about the sun.  Doubtless it had never occurred to them that the sun was actually a star.     

*   *   *

By the end of the week Siandra had been to all of her classes twice and had a big Herbology essay that was due next week.  Lily and her were partnered together for this essay and they still had to find about thirty more herbs around the Hogwarts grounds. They were both, at the moment, pouring over large dusty volumes in the library trying to find out where they might find some herbs.  They didn't know for sure how the other people were doing, but Siandra was sure that her and Lily were far behind, but the only reason that she thought this was because of her personal standards.

              Siandra gazed absently from the window, her eyes wandering from the old Herbology textbook and saw a small person walking around with Ogg and surveying the grounds.  She looked again and decided that "small" wasn't quite the right word for he quite towered over Ogg. No, she thought, the right word was "young" because he couldn't be more than 25, probably younger.  And at the edge of the green lawn, she saw something that made her mind click.

              "Lily!" she whispered loudly in Lily's general direction.

              "What?" asked Lily, turning from her thick, leather-bound book.

              "Over at the edge of the grounds! Why didn't I think of that before? There must be millions of herbs in there!"

              "Of course!" said Lily, "The forest."


	5. Hagrid, Ogg, and Mr Pringle

A/N: Okay — apparently I can't put in tables or drop caps, so sorry about the odd formatting. The class schedule was supposed to be a table. I'll try and fix it soon. And if you haven't figured this out yet, I really like cliffhangers…hehe. 

DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING new. 

H A G R I D, O G G, 

A N D M R. P R I N G L E

Lily and Siandra decided that they'd leave about one on Sunday for the forest, because, as Siandra pointed out, they wanted to be in the common room by nine o'clock, and they wanted to have light while they were in the forest, because it was so thick with trees. Siandra kept thinking that there was some little thing that she forgot, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't bring herself to remember it. Lily suggested watching Ogg and the other person that was with him going into the forest to see where they went because she doubted that there was a path and she didn't think that they would be eager to help her do their homework. Siandra thought that they had come up with a great idea because none of the other people seemed to be thinking of going into the forest, and there weren't many people around it, just Ogg and the other person. She thought that there probably wasn't anything much of interest except for the plants, and that satisfied her except for that little nagging of something she'd forgotten. 

On Sunday at noon, Lily and Siandra picked up their herb sketchbooks and their identifying guide and some quills, and packed them into an old star-patterned bag of Siandra's and at a quarter until one, they set off for the forest. 

"I don't know why no one else has thought of the forest! It's the perfectly logical place to look," said Lily as they both walked down the stone steps, their bags banging against their legs, "Maybe they're afraid of getting lost or something like that. Don't worry, we won't." she added, seeing the look on Siandra's face. 

What if they did get lost? She hadn't thought of that before, and it seemed to worry her a little, until they both arrived at the forest's edge. 

"Ogg goes in this way," she pointed to a rather crude path, just an opening between the weeds, "So I think we'd better go in this way too." 

They both cautiously stepped over the weeds and into the forest. It was rather dark, but the floor was covered in lush greenery and they soon had all the plants that they needed. They turned back and found that it would be quite easy to find their way back. If, that was, there hadn't been a large figure standing in their way.

It was Ogg, the gamekeeper who had shown them to Hogwarts, across the lake. But right now he wasn't looking as kindly as he was when he showed the way. He was looking very sternly at them.

"Come on now, you're going to see Mr. Pringle about this!" he said gruffly, pulling them both by their robe collars and leading them back through the forest. "Honestly! In broad daylight! He'll have you for this!"

Siandra would have like to have protested about this, because there was nothing wrong, but there seemed to be something wrong with her tongue. She barely noticed as Ogg led them both back through the castle and down to a corridor on the second floor that they had never been to before and into a large office at which a staff member they had never known sat. 

"And these are the troublemakers then? Good," he said, looking up from his paperwork. "I'll deal with them for now. You may bring Hagrid in later for questioning. You may leave." 

He had rather greasy brown hair and his eyes were staring coldly at them. From beside her, Lily gave her a scared look. 

"So, you two find rules above you, do you? Wandering around where you shouldn't be, trying to make trouble? And in only the second week of school, dear me, what a disgrace. What do you have to say for yourselves this time, eh?"

Siandra stuttered trying to find the right words to defend her, "B — but it's not after nine o'clock is it? We only went in there at about one, and we didn't have a watch so we didn't know that it was so late, we just lost track of time, honestly!" 

"In the Forbidden Forest, it is always past nine," he said, and grinned wickedly. 

"The er…_Forbidden_Forest? Er, why is it called that?" 

Once she said that, she immediately wished that she hadn't as it was obvious to why it was called the Forbidden Forest. The nagging feeling was coming back to her and she was trying in vain to figure out what it meant.

"Because it's forbidden, you nasty little first years! And ah, here they come." 

"But _we _didn't know! Dumbledore would have said something at the feast!" said Lily, who had been keeping quiet the whole time. 

Then Siandra remembered. She hadn't heard him say that at the feast because Lily had asked her something about the ghosts during his speech. That was why Lily hadn't heard it either. She was about to say something to Lily about this, but just then, three people came in the doorway. They included Ogg, the other person that was usually with Ogg, and Professor Pimea. All three of them sat down in chairs facing Lily and Siandra, and all three of them wore very stern faces. 

"Hagrid!" Mr. Pringle, the man sitting at the desk, said sharply to the other man on his right. Siandra supposed that his name must be Hagrid. Hagrid, if that was his name, turned and looked at Mr. Pringle.

"Were you the one who lead them into the forest? Filled their heads with some nonsense about it not being out-of-bounds? Did you think that it would make you look good if they were expelled?" Mr. Pringle demanded to Hagrid. "I suppose that it was Lily he was after, considering her (ahem) history," he added to Professor Pimea. "You _have _been keeping a close eye on him, Ogg?" Ogg nodded solemnly. 

"It wasn't me! I din' show 'em nowhere!" pleaded Hagrid.

"He's right it was just — " Lily was interrupted by the swishing cloak of Albus Dumbledore as he entered the office. There was becoming quite a crowd in there. 

"I have heard that Hagrid is being accused in this room. I believe that I have cleared him from this nonsense?" said Professor Dumbledore.

"But Professor! Hagrid just coaxed this muggle-born and her friend into the Forbidden Forest! He was hoping, no doubt, that they would get expelled or wounded or killed or…." pleaded Mr. Pringle. He seemed intent on getting Hagrid in trouble.

"It wasn't him!" shouted Lily, expressing her outrages both at being called "this muggle-born" and having Hagrid being accused for their wrongdoing. 

"Hagrid? Ogg? You are dismissed. Professor Pimea will decide what Lily and Siandra's punishment will be." 

With these final words, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and Ogg left, leaving Lily and Siandra with a stern-looking Professor Pimea and Mr. Pringle looking like he had been denied chocolate for the rest of his life. 

"Now you two," said Professor Pimea, rounding on Lily and Siandra, "You have disgraced the Gryffindor house! You — "

"We didn't know that it was out-of-bounds and we were going in there to do homework anyway and we didn't go far and we followed the path! Please, professor!" 

"All the same, I am shocked at such behavior. You will each receive detentions, and, let's see, thirty points from Gryffindor each. I will send you an owl when you are to receive your detentions. You are to go straight to your dormitories." 

Professor Pimea waltzed out of the office and Mr. Pringle shooed them out. They walked silently up the five winding flights of stairs up to the Gryffindor common room, dreading the response of their fellow Gryffindors when they saw that Gryffindor was already sixty points behind in their second week. 

When they had to shout the password ("Camillo") at the fat lady, who was asleep, and entered the common room, it seemed that none of their fellow Gryffindors has passed the giant hourglasses that told the points yet that day, and she dreaded when they would. She wondered if they did negative points. She and Lily hurried up to the girls' dormitory and Siandra collapsed on her bed and looked at Lily. 

"I can't believe our luck! Ogg had to be _there _of all places and he had to catch us. And imagine what all the other Gryffindors will think when the see the points…." Lily frowned darkly as she trailed off. "I wonder why Mr. Pringle kept trying to accuse Hagrid," she finished. 

"Oh, I know. And we have to do detention too. Professor Pimea shouldn't have taken away _all _of those house points! But at least we got our Herbology assignment done!" said Siandra and it made her self feel just a little better that something came of it. Just then, Leanne and Claire walked in. 

"Hey, why are you up here?" asked Leanne, concernedly. 

"We, er — " Siandra paused not knowing what to tell them, but then spilled the whole story out and Leanne and Claire listed sympathetically. "And we're so afraid of what the other Gryffindors will think! We weren't trying to rule-break or anything!" 

"It's okay," soothed Claire, "I hope that they will understand." She said this with much conviction, but it was clear that neither of them thought that the other members of the house would quite understand. 

They both locked themselves in the girls' dormitory and waited for Claire to slip them some food from dinner and a small flask of pumpkin juice for them to share. They still didn't know if the rest of the school knew and tomorrow they would have to unlock their dormitory and go to classes and they didn't know that, hostile house or not, there would be something unexpected to look forward to next week.


	6. Flying Lessons

A/N: There's not really anything to say for this chapter. 

DISCLAIMER: I own Sennin. That's it. 

F L Y I N G L E S S O N S

Somehow, someone had spread the news that Gryffindor had just lost 60 of its new points, and was down to almost none. Gina, Betty, and their other roommates under-stood, but some of the other residents of Gryffindor house were not so understanding. Most of the other residents were simply avoiding them, but a few were being particularly nasty. Siandra was making a point of staying in the library, hidden behind the bookshelves and her and Lily were staying back in Transfiguration to help Professor Comora. 

A few weeks afterward, after they had come out of Transfiguration, they saw a clump of excited-looking first-years huddled around a large banner, which read: 

%

FLYING LESSONS FOR FIRST-YEARS

Will begin on October 5th and will continue throughout the year.

While this class is mandatory for first-years, it is set as an 

elective option for second years and above. Classes are held at 

Hogwarts' side lawn, which is labeled clearly with "Flying Class". 

Your teacher is Madam Hooch. Below are listed your house and 

their times. Since first-years are not allowed to bring their own 

broomsticks, we have set up a broomstick-rental with Mr. Hagrid. 

The cost is five sickles per broom. If this is a hardship 

for your family, please contact Professor Comora. Thank you.

Slytherin and Hufflepuff – Wednesday 1:00 PM to 2:10 PM

Gryffindor and Ravenclaw – Friday 1:00 PM to 2:10 PM

A small sign below it pointed out the way to the hut where Hagrid would be renting brooms. 

"Yeah! We're with the Ravenclaws!" cheered Siandra doing a small little jumpy thing with her feet. If they were with the Ravenclaws then Siandra would get to see the person who was in back of her at the sorting again. She turned around and saw Leanne behind her looking confused at her.

"I'm just…er…glad that we're not with the Slytherins! Yeah," she added although she could tell that Leanne was not convinced. She couldn't wait for Friday to come.

On Thursday she thought that she'd better go and rent a broom from Hagrid, because she didn't want to be the only first-year without one. She thought that it was rather silly to say that first-years are not allowed to bring brooms and then say that they have to take a mandatory flying class and that they'd have to rent brooms because they weren't allowed to bring any. Why weren't they allowed to bring brooms anyway? She walked around the castle a little bit until she reached a rather crude-looking hut that appeared to have a thatch roof and walls made out of twigs, although it was hard to tell because most of the wall was covered in somewhat cheap-looking broomsticks. At the front was an old chipped desk that appeared to be drug out of the castle, the kind that you'd find in a broom closet sale. At the top of the hut was a banner, which was made out of scraggly sheets and bore the words "Brum Rentell" and seated at the desk, directly below the banner was a person that made you understand at once why the ceiling was so high. 

"Erm…Mr. Hagrid?" Siandra asked hesitantly to the man at the desk.

"Yep, that's me. And what kinda broom will yer be wantin' terday?" answered the giant. Siandra took her eyes off of Mr. Hagrid and gazed at all of the brooms. From what she could see, they all seemed to have something wrong with them. The one in the corner though, had a very shiny handle and the twigs were nearly perfect. There was some silver writing on the end, which Siandra thought, probably described the make.

"How about that one then, in the right hand corner," she said, directing Hagrid to the broom. "Yes, the one with the silver writing." 

Hagrid picked up the right broom and carried it over to the counter and gently laid it down.

"Ah, yer picked out the '56 Shootin' Star! It flies kinda funny, but it looks really good!" he praised.

"Er…I don't think that I'll have that one then. Maybe one that flies good then." 

"Okay," said Hagrid, and propped the Shooting Star back in its place in the corner and began to dig through some piled up brooms on the floor and soon brought up a nicked, peeling broom on which the twigs stuck out at many places. It looked like it had been bashed up against the winged boars that guarded the gates of the castle many times, but Hagrid was holding it as if it were a priceless treasure. 

"The Silver Arrow," he awed as he looked at it. "You migh' not think it looks real good, but a bit' o' tunin' up will make 'er as good as new! It's easily the best flyer 'ere! You really want this broom!"

"I do?" asked Siandra, looking critically at its flaws. Hagrid looked mortally offended. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. If you say it's good, I'll rent it…here's the five sickles…thanks!" waved Siandra as she left with her messed-up broom. She hoped that Hagrid was telling the truth and that it was a good flier. She brought it back up to the dormitory (she was still avoiding the common room) and tried nervously to straighten the tail. 

When Friday at one o'clock in the afternoon finally did come, Siandra and the rest of the Gryffindor first-years walked excitedly down the stone steps, dragging their broomsticks, and on to the side lawn of Hogwarts, busily talking about what kinds of flying they had done before. Most people from wizarding families were bragging about the kinds of daring and talented things that they'd done on their broomsticks, and most everyone couldn't stop talking about Quidditch. Siandra was busy talking to Gina about how she loved practicing Quidditch on her little moor, when they all saw that all of the Ravenclaws were standing in a line with each of their brooms out in front of them. Siandra was pleased to see that the person who was in back of her at the sorting was there and Madam Hooch was standing at the front of the line.

"All right now, Gryffindors, get in the positions the Ravenclaws are in and we'll start the lesson. Hurry up!" she commanded. They all scurried to get in the position that the Ravenclaws were in quickly so as not to be scolded by Madam Hooch. When they were all in position, Madam Hooch told them to hold their hand above their broom and command, "UP!" When Siandra said it, her broom immediately flew into her hand. Most people tried to do so, but Siandra remained in the minority. She thought that it might have to do with how scared you were of flying, or if you really wanted to. Madam Hooch was walking between the lines of people with a clipboard and taking notes. She walked down and stopped in front of Siandra.

"Ah, I see you have managed to get your broom to your hand…and look at that broom! A Silver Arrow! What fine brooms those are, I remember when I was a child I had one of those…. Well, anyway, full marks for you!" she said crisply and started pacing the line once more and turning to Leanne, whose broom was writhing on the grass. When most of the people had their brooms in their hands (some people had to finally just pick them up) Madam Hooch instructed them to try and fly somewhat low in the air, and then come back down. Siandra mounted her broom and took off into the air. It was a wonderful sensation, as it always was when she flew at home. There were some whoops of joy from bedside her and she knew that her classmates were enjoying it as much as she was. Hagrid wasn't lying; this broom _could _fly well. She saw that some of her friends and roommates were trying hard to turn them, pulling on the handle very hard, but the Silver Arrow seemed to move just by her touching it. Some of the other people were struggling to control it, but the Silver Arrow was very easy to control, and it could fly higher than all of the other brooms too. But soon, Madam Hooch instructed them to land and she praised them for all of their good work. After taking some notes and practicing turning, she let them have the rest of the class time for socializing and she became their first teacher to do so. Since it was their first class with the Ravenclaws, most of her friends introduced themselves to each other. She immediately went over to the person who was in back of her and introduced herself.

"Hello, what's your name?" she asked.

"I'm busy _talking _to someone more worthy of my conversation," he said. Siandra blushed heavily. It was true that he was talking, but he could at least stop for a moment to say hello. 

"Sorry if I disturbed the top secret ministry meeting. Of course you can't even stop to say hello to a little civilian like me," Siandra said sarcastically and then coolly walked away. 

After she had gone a little ways from them, she looked back to see what their reaction was. His friend seemed to be reprimanding him and he seemed to have split the dry skin on his lip. Just then, the bell rang from inside the castle signaling the end of class and all of the students rushed into the castle doors. 

A throng of students came rushing in to get though the double doors first. Siandra stood back and watched the boy put dab his wand at his lip. His friend was still looking concernedly at him. Siandra smiled. The 'war' had begun and she was already winning. 

"Who's that boy over there?" she asked Lily. 

"Oh, that's Sennin," she replied. "He's cute, isn't he?" 

Siandra scowled.


	7. The Forgotten Corridor

       a/n: I'm back!  The rest of Siandra's Story (not the first one, but the whole series) is now pretty much dead.  This was the first time I had looked at my first finished version of "The Yeremby" in about half a year and I am now kind of embarrassed at the way I wrote back then.   Yes, I KNOW that most of this stuff is now outdated, due to the fifth book, but bear in mind that I finished this about three years ago, and thought it would be nice to put out the rest.  No big disclaimer this time.

T H E   F O R G O T T E N   C O R R I D O R

I

n the heat of what had happened, Lily and Siandra had forgotten that they still had to do their detentions.  It had been about three weeks since their punishment, and life in the Gryffindor Tower was getting back to normal as people were starting to forgive them.  Therefore, it came as a surprise when two large snowy owls dropped Lily and Siandra identical letters in their cranberry sauce. 

              "Erg, what's this?" asked Lily wiping some of the sauce off with her napkin.  

              "No idea!" Siandra replied, ripping off the envelope and flinging it into the fire.   Inside was a short letter, which read:

Ms. Millisandra Lorington:

Your detention will take place at nine o'clock tonight.

Please meet Mr. Pringle in his office (number 278) 

on the second floor corridor.  

If you are asked about your appearance at this time, 

please show the questioner this note. 

"Is yours a detention slip too?  I completely forgot that we had to do that too!  I hope that it won't be something horrible!" said Lily.  Leanne, who had heard their conversation, turned her chair toward them.  

              "I hope you won't have to go into the Forbidden Forest!  My sister told me that there are all sorts of things in there — like werewolves!" she added.

              "I don't think they'd do that.  It's why we got in detention in the first place," Lily reminded Leanne glumly. 

              "You went into the_Forbidden__Forest_?" Leanne asked, in disbelief.

              "Yes, we should've listened when Dumbledore told us that the forest was out-of-bounds and dangerous, but we went in to find some herbs for our Herbology project and Ogg caught us," said Siandra.

Both Siandra and Lily were dreading when nine would come, and, as in most cases like this, time seemed to go a lot faster than usual.  Before they knew it, they were both were heading down the many flights of stairs to Mr. Pringle's office on the second floor.  Mr. Pringle, as usual, was wearing a scowl. 

              "Ah, hello first-years.  Regretting our troublemaking now, are we?" he asked in a mocking tone, "You will follow me up these stairs to where your detention will take place." Then he left his office chair and walked briskly out of his office.  Lily and Siandra followed glumly, exchanging dark looks.  Soon their legs started getting tired as they went up staircase after staircase.  Siandra lost count at one hundred and forty-four, which was odd because she was sure Hogwarts only had one hundred and forty-two.  Finally, they stopped somewhere on the ninth floor and Mr. Pringle pointed to a row of classroom doors ahead, which paneled both sides of the hall.

              "I say, do you like _cleaning?_"he announced nastily, "Well, you're certainly not going to like it after you're finished with this lot!  Because you're each going to each clean ten of these rooms!" 

              He cackled evilly and pointed to the first row of doors. 

              "Now you, with the red hair! You take that side! And the black hair! You take the left side!  I want you finished in two hours!  I'll come back when your time's up.  Happy cleaning!" he said and he walked off. Lily and Siandra both walked sadly to their set of corridors and entered the first one.   It was a rather empty, unused classroom. There was a chalky blackboard in the front, and five lines of desks leading up to it.  Siandra wondered why they were asked to clean them, when it was clear that they were not in use.  Never the less, Siandra took out the cleaning stuff that Mr. Pringle had shoved on her, and began cleaning.  She dusted all of the desks and the shelves, washed the chalkboard, swept the floor, straightened the books, and picked the cobwebs off of the ceiling.  Finally, when she thought it was ready, she moved on to the next room. One room down, nine to go.  She walked out into the hall.  It appeared that Lily wasn't done with the first room yet because Siandra couldn't see her through the window of her second room.  She turned around and opened the second door.  It too was a classroom, almost identical to the first.  

              Soon she fell into a regular routine: dust this, polish that, sweep this, wash that….  Her mind kept drifting off, thinking of other things like homework and talking with Professor Comora.  This was, until the last door.  It was a much heavier door than the rest, and a great deal larger.  She opened it and it lead to a spiral staircase that went down a few floors, probably all the way to the third!  She checked her watch.  It was half an hour until they had to meet Mr. Pringle, she figured that she'd have enough time to go down there and see if there was a dusty classroom at the bottom.  She left the mop, the water, the duster, the broom, and her other cleaning equipment at the top of the stairs, figuring that she'd come back up and get them if she needed them.  The stairs seemed to last forever, when she finally reached the bottom, she was in a large room, lit with flaming torches.  On the ceiling there was a small patch of light.  She figured that it must have been some sort of trapdoor.  There was nothing in the first room, but a door was ajar leading into a second room.  She walked through the door and found that there was nothing in the second room either, but it did have a rather high ceiling.  

              The third room was different.  It looked like it had once been a giant ballroom, but it had been forgotten for many years.  The giant door creaked loudly when she opened it and her steps echoed throughout the room.  The floor was in a chess-square pattern with black and white marble squares.  Huge griffin statues stood as if guarding the next door, draped in cobwebs.  She could tell it hadn't been used for a long time because of all of the dust on the floor, she could almost see her footprints in it because it was so thick.  It had a high ceiling with a small circular picture of clouds at the very top.  Her feet tingled as she stepped on the floor, and she started waltzing around the floor.  She started letting her mind wander and thought about Professor Comora, and why she was in Slytherin.  She wasn't a bad person at all.  In fact, she was very nice and… She looked at her watch and saw that she only had twelve minutes left.  She rushed through the rest of the rooms (which were empty) and in the last room she found a library book on the table.  She grabbed it, thinking that someone had come down here for a bit of quiet reading and forgotten it, rushed back through the rooms and ran up the stairs, and grabbed her cleaning equipment at the top.  

              She burst open the door and ran down the hallway, and dropped the cleansing water bucket down at the end, accidentally splattering Lily with dirty mop water. 

              "Oh, Lily!  I'm so sorry!  Here, you can have this," Siandra apologized, handing Lily her dusting cloth to wipe herself off.

              "No, er, that's okay," she said, looking reprovingly at the dirty rag and mopping off her face with a corner of her robe. Then, Mr. Pringle came out of the shadows holding a glowing lantern.

              "Finished early, eh?  Or just trying to hide that you've done nothing?  Just been sitting here and talking the whole time?  For this I suggest ten _more _rooms and — " 

              Another lantern came into view, this time illuminating the face of Professor Comora.

              "Now, really, Apollyon!  What has gotten into you?  These students have been working very hard; they have already paid off their detentions!  I don't suggest leaving them out here the whole nightlong!  You may leave now, Apollyon, I will take them to be myself," reprimanded Professor Comora.  

              Mr. Pringle took one last glance at their triumphant faces and scurried off into the darkened corridors.  Professor Comora, however, wasn't watching Mr. Pringle leave, but was looking intently at the book in Siandra's arms. 

              "Ms. Lorington, what is that book that you are carrying?" she asked.

              "I'm not sure, I just found it while I was cleaning. I'm going to return it to the library tomorrow.  It looked like it must have been there for ages!" Siandra explained.

              "I'm sure it has.  Thank you for turning that book in, Siandra, would you like me to take it for you?"

              "No, I think I'll have time tomorrow, thanks, though." Siandra said.  

              "Well, you'd better hurry off to your common rooms before some teacher tries to frame you for something, here, I'll write you a note…" she paused as she took out a quill and scrawled something on a piece of paper.  

              "Here you are, I trust that you will go straight back to Gryffindor common room," she dismissed and walked silently off.  Lily and Siandra started walking back and Siandra glanced at the note, which read:

_Please excuse these students from being out of their appropriate common room, I have granted them permissions to be in the hallways without my accompaniment, and I allow them to escort themselves back to their common room. _

_Viviana _  

                Once they reached the safety of the common room, Siandra took the note and the book, and crawled into her bed, drawing the curtains.  She put the note in her bedside table drawer and brought out the book.  It was very old, and rather worn with a picture of a sorceress dressed in blue on the front.  It bore the title _High Magic.  _Inside on one of the moldy pages it had a table of contents.  Most of them were weird names, like the "Gemelyins" and "Marikno", but some other ones were ones she remembered like "Philosopher's Stone" and "Basilisk" and "Sphinx".  She lit up her wand and started to read.     


	8. Rownica's Secret

     a/n: I actually kind of like this chapter.  Rownica, I think and I'm not quite sure why, is a very good character and one of my only true original characters.  Her story was such fun to write and one of the few short stories (seeing as I usually have the disability of writing short stories) that I think is fairly good.  Perhaps sometime I will go back and write it in more detail from Rownica's point of view.  Note that I was lazy and didn't go through this and correct grammar this time, please excuse. 

          Disclaimer: By the mere fact that this is posted on a site called "FanFiction", I should hope that all of you corporate people would figure out that this does not belong to me…except Rownica's story.   

R O W N I C A'' S  S E C R E T

H

alloween was coming, and all of the Gryffindors were looking forward to what promised to be a spectacular display.  Hagrid had been growing giant pumpkins that already seemed to guard the entrance to the Great Hall and the ghosts were to be seen rehearsing parts for some sort of play.  

              When Siandra and Claire walked out of History of Magic, in which a very old teacher who was named Professor Binns taught, they were greatly surprised by a striped umbrella floating in midair.

              "Er…what do you suppose that could be?" asked Claire, hesitantly.  

            "Dunno," Siandra said and reached her hand out to touch the end.  There was a sudden cackling sound and the next minute, the umbrella was stuck on her head and she couldn't see anything.  

              "Help! Help!  I've been attacked by a mad umbrella!" she yelled and tried to run for Professor Binns' room but ended up bumping into what seemed to be the wall.  

              She heard a disgruntled response from a picture that she supposed she had bumped into and mumbled, "Sorry."

              "Ickle firsty doesn't know where she's going! Hehehe!" said a mocking voice from up above her.  

            "PEEVES!" she heard someone roar and the umbrella was pulled off her head just in time to see Madam Hooch diving at the floor.  However, there didn't seem to be anything there, as she rose up massaging her head and repeatedly saying "ow".    

            "Er…Madam Hooch?"

            "That's Peeves, the poltergeist.  I've no idea why Dumbledore let him in, he's not really even a ghost, but he's here, but there are just some things in life that we can't change, so we have to deal with him.  The Bloody Baron, the Slytherin ghost, is the only one who can control him," she explained.  And then to the ceiling, "THE BARON'LL HEAR ABOUT THIS AND I MEAN IT!"  

            Then she excused herself and rushed off to the Hospital Wing.  

            "That was sure unexpected, I wonder why we never noticed him before…maybe he's made a grand entrance or something," Claire wondered aloud as they passed a group of startled-looking second years who just had a carpet pulled from beneath them and were screaming with terror.

            Even though she had returned the library book back to Madam Pince, she kept thinking about it.  Why had it been down there?  Did someone else know about the corridor, or had it been forgotten for centuries, buried under the dust? 

              The day of the feast happened in a flurry.  Their last class was Transfiguration, with Professor Comora.  Siandra and the rest of the first years were chatting after the bell to waste time in order to get to the feast.  Siandra's necklace from a secret admirer was still on everyone's mind and they expressed various theories about it.  Most people thought it was from some older student that Siandra didn't know that was 'enchanted by the becoming first-year'. 

When Halloween finally came, a group of Gryffindors made their way down to the Great Hall, chatting excitedly.  When they reached the doors to the Great Hall, they found the two giant pumpkins standing by the door and there was an enchanted new doorknocker in the shape of a skeleton hand. Gina opened the door and they found themselves in the Great Hal.  The usual hundreds of floating candles had been placed inside of numerous carved pumpkins and a thousand live bats fluttered around the ceiling.  They gazed up at the stormy ceiling while they walked through the center and sat at the edge of the Gryffindor table.  The golden plates and goblets had been newly polished and the punch bowls filled with iced pumpkin juice.  The teachers were looking relaxed at the high table, and Professor Comora was talking with Madam Hooch.  Every one of the Gryffindors started digging ravenously into their foods.  Siandra thought that it was even better than the beginning of the year feast.  The start-of-term feast probably looked so good because she had never been to the Great Hall before, nor tasted their foods.  

              Once they had all sat down, Dumbledore stood up and announced that a band of skeletons would be serenading them as they ate their feast and quite a few students stood up to cheer.  The skeletons struck up a lively tune as the school finished their dinner, and they ended with a much slower one.  

              Afterwards, the ghosts sat in seats provided for them that were against the wall near the high table and watched the play that the ghosts had put together (they called it "Double Beheading") with The Grey Lady (the Ravenclaw ghost) and Nearly Headless Nick (the Gryffindor ghost) as the stars.       

              Finally, after a very fun night, they headed out of the Great Hall at about seven o'clock.  Siandra was so busy thinking about what the evening had been like, that she didn't even notice where she was walking and ended up bumping into a ghost, giving her the sensation that she had stepped into a bucket of ice water. 

              "Oh, sorry, didn't see you there!  Er…who are you?" she asked as she first realized that she had never seen this ghost before.  

              "My name's Rownica.  I'm the '_should be' _Ravenclaw resident ghost," she said, glancing jealously in the direction of The Grey Lady, who was passing by.  

              "Er — if you don't mind me asking — why?" Siandra asked. 

              "Come here, into this empty classroom and I'll tell you just _why_, I just don't want _her _to be listening," she said, directing Siandra into the classroom with an ajar door with her arm a few millimeters away from Siandra's back, so she wouldn't actually touch her.  She took one last spiteful glance at The Grey Lady and then glided into the classroom after Siandra. 

              Siandra took a seat at one of the desks and Rownica tried to take a seat next to her, but failed, having only achieved to go through it.  

              "Well, _I _am Rowena Ravenclaw's great, great, great, great, great, great — " 

              "Er…you can stop now, I get the point."

              "Great grandchild, and at the time, _I _was the only direct remaining relation of one of the great Hogwarts Four that was fully aware of their noble lineage and ready to take part in the responsibilities it entailed," she ticked them off on her fingers, "Godric Gryffindor had children, I'm related to him and my other relations were off somewhere doing their own things.  Salazar's children were off doing their dark deeds elsewhere, away from the school, thank goodness.  Helga Hufflepuff had some, but they eventually all died and in my time, all that was left was an in-law relation, who hardly knew the noble history of his great ancestors.  He posed no threat."

              "No thre — " she quickly covered her mouth, "Sorry, go on."

              "_Anyway, _there was a dark wizard coming to power.  His name…was Orknian.  Most dark wizards start by just gathering followers, but he had them all right.  In numbers never seen before," she shivered and continued, "He wanted to take over Hogwarts, and at the time, I was the headmistress, my ancestor being what she was.  I was engaged to a man named Englen.  One evening, while I was sitting in my office, looking at student grade reports, Englen came in.  He was carrying two goblets from the table and a bottle of wine that he said that the house-elves gave him.  He offered me some and, of course, I accepted.  He walked over to a desk behind me and poured us each a glass. He also brought out some bread and cheese, so we could have a meal, and when we were done, he asked me truthfully whether I would entrust the school to him if I died.  Foolish I was, I said, 'Oh yes, of course!  But I doubt that will happen for a long time!'  Then he looked at the golden clock that I had on the mantelpiece, laughed easily and started changing into…Orknian," she paused as she shivered once again.  Obviously, the thought still chilled her, "I then realized that he must've taken the Polyjuice Potion to turn into Englen so I would agree to hand over Hogwarts to him once I died.  I then also realized, that there was only one step left for him to complete before he could take total control of Hogwarts.  I threw the wineglass onto the floor, but I was too late and the poison was already starting to take effect and I soon died."

              "What happened?" asked Siandra, eager too see how the story ended and Hogwarts was saved. 

              "Oh, Galdrakona got him in the end," she said wistfully and would have continued had Siandra not interrupted. 

              "Galdrakona was _here_?  Are you talking about _this _school?  I mean, she was a really powerful witch, and she was one of the people who practically _discovered _magic! She was _here? _And anyway, how could she live that long?" Siandra asked in disbelief.  She had studied Galdrakona in PWS (Pre Wizarding School) and had leaned that she was one of the most powerful wizards that there ever was and she thought that she would hardly reside in Hog-warts.  

              "She was the first ever to make the Philosopher's Stone, didn't you know that?"

              "Er…no."

              "Well anyway, she took the Elixir of Life.  After a while she went down in the ocean to see if there were mermaid colonies there and was never seen again.  While she was here, at Hogwarts, I mean, she made loads of secret passageways here and they say that she left tons of magical artifacts, hidden around the school too."

              "Wow, cool!  And one more question for you…"

              "Mmmmm?"

              "Why do people become ghosts?"

"Ah, what a good question!  Many living beings want to know that question and hardly any get answers.  But I think that I can trust just you with this little forbidden tidbit of information? Mmm?"

              "Of course!" said Siandra eagerly.

              "People who become ghosts," Rownica whispered dramatically while Siandra listened intently, "Are people who have suffered a particularly violent or sudden death, have unfinished business, or are condemned to for their sins." 

              "Wow…thank you so much for telling me, I'd best get going, it's eight forty-five," thanked Siandra walking off, "Good-bye!"

                "And do you think that you could tell The Grey Lady how very fitted I am?  I'm just _dying_ to get her position.  Anyway, you always know where to find me!"


	9. The Secret Admirer

    a/n: And thus ends my original character-ness for now.  I dedicate this chapter to my mother, who came up with the inspiration for this idea of a secret admirer (thanks, Mum).  Here you get a first taste of James and company's mischief-making.  Enjoy.        

T H E   S E C R E T   A D M I R E R

"""E

r…Miss Grey Lady?" Siandra asked to the rather pretty ghost floating in front of her.  A few weeks after she had first met Rownica, she remembered her promise to talk to The Grey Lady about her.  She was now face-to-face with the Ravenclaw ghost she wasn't quite sure what to say to her. 

              "Yes, dear?" she asked, looking expectantly at Siandra.

              "Er…well…see, there's this ghost, maybe you've heard of her…her name's Rownica…"

              "Yes, of course I've heard of her," she replied stiffly.

            "Well, see, she really wants to be the Ravenclaw resident ghost.  And her sixth (I think) great grandmother _was _Rowena Ravenclaw," said Siandra in what she thought was a convincing tone.  

              "Just because her ancestor was what she was doesn't mean that she displays the qualities that designate the Ravenclaw house.  It's your mind that distinguishes your house, not your ancestry.  Anyway, _I _have proof that Helga Hufflepuff's great grandson was in Gryffindor," she continued haughtily.  Siandra had to admit that The Grey Lady definitely had a better argument than Rownica 

              "She says that she _really, really _wants your position.  I just saw her a few days and she says that she has a better death than you," Siandra said.  Rownica hadn't exactly said that, but she did say that she had a good death, "_She_ was poisoned by a Dark Lord in disguise."

              "Well…" The Grey Lady looked a bit flustered, "I _do _admit that she has a better death than me but that has nothing to do with being the Ravenclaw resident ghost!"

              "Let's hear it then," urged Siandra.  She liked listening to ghosts tell how they died because it wasn't often that you got to hear people tell you how they died.  

              "I'd _rather _not talk about it."

              "Oh, sorry. I didn't mean to intrude.  Well, I've got to get to the library to do some studying.  I'll see you later!" she said and waved good-bye to The Grey Lady.  She climbed the stairs on the left up two floors and entered the library and heard a voice that she had hardly ever heard before.  

              "Oy, Sirius, c'mere!" 

              It was the voice of James Potter.  She hardly ever saw him and his friends in the library.  Somehow she hadn't thought that the word "library" was on their vocabulary list.  Not that they weren't smart, oh no, that wasn't what she meant.  They were some of the smartest students of their year, excluding Peter, but they usually got the books they needed very fast and went out.  This sudden hanging out in the library struck Siandra as very suspicious.  She crouched down low and waddled silently from bookshelf to bookshelf as Sirius made his way with Peter tagging behind him from the "W" section to the "A" section keeping well out of view.  She finally stopped at the bookcase just behind the one that James, Sirius, and Peter were congregating at, crouched down, and peered through the crack between the top of the books and the bottom of the next shelf.  

              "Are you absolutely sure that it's right?"

              "It's in the library, isn't it?  Madam Pince wouldn't put a book with false information in the library."

              "And you are absolutely sure that Remu — "

              "Yes."

  "Do you think we should surprise him?"  
"Dunno.  I some how think that it will be hard to, with about three years."

"I hope we won't get caught."

"I don't think we will."

"We need to ask him for information anyway.  Maybe he can help us!"

              The feet of Sirius shifted a little bit, probably to look at the book that James was holding. 

              "I guess that this book will have to do.  I guess that third years study it so that's why it's there.  The only other way that we're going to find something is in the Restricted Section and I don't know how to get in there."

              "Excuse me." 

              Siandra had risen from her hiding place and was confronting them.

              "What did you hear?" demanded Sirius.

              "Enough!  I heard you talking about 'getting caught' and trying to get into the Restricted Section!  Think of the points you'll lose from Gryffindor!  What is it that you're doing, anyway?"

                "It's none of your business!  If we get caught then it's our fault but we'll make sure that we're not — "

              All of them turned their backs to her and started a hurried whispered conversation.  Siandra sat back against the shelves.  

              "She's really good at transfiguration and spells and stuff.  Maybe she could help with — "

              "Shh! Don't go _telling _her!  And of course she would be helpful, if she didn't have all that stuff about breaking the rules in her head." 

              Siandra was listening intently.

              "Are you sure that she can't help?"

              "Yes, absolutely! And make sure that you don't let anything slip, Peter."

              They had all triumphantly returned and faced Siandra.

              "You can't help us if you are so intent on sticking to the rules.  What you can do is just please don't go telling anything and keep it a secret — "

              "And what are you going to do with poor Remus anyway?" she demandingly interrupted, "He's had _enough _trouble with his aunt being sick…" 

              They seemed to think that this was funny and were unsuccessfully trying to stifle their sniggering.  
              "What? You don't think that I _like _him, now do you?  Because you can be sure that I," she stopped, looking at their confused faces and realizing she had completely misinter-preted.  "Well…er…that wasn't what you meant…But anyway, as a fellow Gryffindor I have a right to know what you're planning to do to break the rules that might lose us loads of house points!" she demanded, more to distract them because she knew that her attempt was almost completely hopeless.

              "No you don't!" replied Sirius, "We're going now, anyway.  Good-bye," he said and they all crowded to get behind Siandra.  

              After they had left, she hurried into the section to see if there were any other books on that topic.  To her dismay, there were none unless they were looking at _Acromantulas__ and Ashwinders _by Riskana Dier.  It looked like there was an empty space so they must've taken the book that they had wanted for their 'secret rule-breaking' thing.  She thought about going to ask Madam Pince, the librarian about it, but decided against it.  If James and Sirius thought that they could get away with it, they usually could, even though she wanted them to know that they couldn't do it with impunity every time.  She crept back to the "C" section and checked out a large green volume packed with counter-curses for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

              She waited for Claire, who she was supposed to meet outside of the library and, when she caught a glimpse of her hair down the hallway, ran up to her and was about to tell her about the conversation that she had just heard between James and his friends, but then remembered that they had told her not to tell anyone about it.  Instead, she asked about the homework for Charms, which they talked about until they reached the Gryffindor common room.  Right outside the portrait hole, Lily was waiting for her.

              "Ooooh!  Come and look!  There's something for you in the dormitory!" she beckoned them to come with her as she raced up the spiral staircase.  On her four-poster bed, there was a small envelope.  Hanging out of the envelope was a rather tarnished old necklace. 

              Siandra ran to the bed and hurriedly split open the envelope.  The necklace flowed out of the envelope and onto her bed.  Inside was a rather messily written note, which read:

A gift for you

Keep it safe

        "Maybe it's from a secret admirer!" suggested Leanne, who just had come in and seen Siandra reading the note. 

        "Who could that be?" asked Lily at once. 

        "I don't know," she said slowly. She didn't recognize the handwriting. She looked over the note again.  It didn't look like anyone's handwriting that she knew, but then, it was hurried so it might look different from his or her regular handwriting.  

"Did anyone in here write it?" she asked, making sure that no one had sent it in just for a joke.  All three of them shook their heads.  

            "And why would they send me this old piece of costume jewelry?" she questioned.

            "It's a token!" exclaimed Leanne, excitedly as if she ought to have known, "If you wear it, then he might reveal his identity.  Keep it safe, like the note says!  Even if it looks like costume jewelry, it could be valuable.  I bet it's pure gold!"  

              Siandra, still filled with consternation, put the necklace in a locked drawer of her jewelry box along with the envelope and the letter and put the silver key in her dresser drawer.  As she crawled into bed that night, she was still pondering the sender of the letter. Who could it possibly be from?

  



	10. The Commentators

    a/n: Your first (and last, sadly, for this book) real taste of Quidditch is in this chapter.  I am sad to say that I cannot write any kind of sport very well — my usual way out of it is to do a sort of "fade to black" idea that I unfortunately couldn't use in this case.  I was so horrible at writing this that I think I had writer's block for about three months and eventually had to have my friend help me quite a lot to the end of the Quidditch.  So then, this chapter is dedicated to her. 

The part in the last chapter when the Grey Lady was beginning to get flustered when forced to recount her death is never actually explained in this book.  I believe what I was trying to get at was the fact that JKR had said that the Grey Lady was based on Lady Jane Grey who was beheaded (by a Muggle! How embarrassing!).      

T H E   C O M M E N T A T O R S

O

n a cold, crisp, November morning, Siandra saw, while walking with Claire out of Herbology, a sign pinned on the doorway announcing the first quidditch match of the season.  It was to be Hufflepuff against Ravenclaw and as soon as she saw the sign, she decided that she was going to be supporting Ravenclaw.  She made a lot of excuses for this, including that Ravenclaw was better, that she had relatives who had been in Ravenclaw, and things like that, all of which were true.  And almost everyone agreed with her: Ravenclaw _was _better than Hufflepuff.

              There was excitement stirring in the air as the Quidditch match approached.  Whenever Siandra looked out of her dormitory window, either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff was wearing brightly-colored robes splattered with mud.  That wasn't counting the Gryffindor and Slytherin teams.  Even though the upcoming match wasn't with them, the still hadn't forgotten that their turn would be soon.  Many a night the Gryffindor team trudged up to the common panting, and collapsed into the vacant armchairs.  When the evening before the Ravenclaw versus Hufflepuff Quidditch match came around, the whole castle seemed to hang heavy with tense excitement.  During breaks between classes, most of the first year Gryffindor girls tramped up to the dormitory to get everything ready for the next day.

             "I can't believe that I can't find any blue robes!  Does anyone have any that I could borrow?" moaned Siandra.

              "You don't need blue robes do go for Ravenclaw, I'm just wearing a blue hair tie," consoled Lily.  

              "They'll hardly be able to see that from flying on a broom!"  Siandra was hoping for something a little more standing-out.  

              "You can have some of my knotgrass and dye it blue," offered Molly, handing her a large portion of her potion set.

              Siandra looked skeptically at the weeds, "Er…what am I supposed to do with them?"

              "Well…you could braid them and pin them to your hair. I don't know!  Do what you want with them," said Molly, shrugging as she fished out a box or hair ribbons from her trunk. Siandra didn't think that she wanted to look like a scarecrow and contented herself with doing something else.  

            The rest of the day seemed to pass very slowly for the Gryffindors and the rest of the school too.  Most people, Siandra included, barely thought that classes surpassed the pre-match atmosphere where Quidditch was the most important thing on everyone's mind.  

              Their last class was Transfiguration, with Professor Comora.  Siandra and the rest of the first years were chatting after the bell to waste time in order to make the evening pass faster.  Siandra's necklace from a secret admirer was still on everyone's mind and they expressed various theories about it.  Most people thought it was from some older student that Siandra didn't know that was 'enchanted by the becoming first-year'. 

            After what seemed like sixteen hours, but was really only four, the Gryffindors climbed through the portrait of the fat lady (after saying the password, "Hum-de-do") and collapsed into the soft chairs.  However, they were not exhausted.  The chatter about the next day's match continued.  Over half of the Gryffindors thought that Ravenclaws would win, and they thought with good reason.  

              "The Hufflepuffs haven't won for about half a century!" argued Sirius, holding a large Quidditch statistics book.  

              "So?" retorted the concerned third-year who had asked them about their schedules on the first day, "That doesn't have _anything _to do with their performance now!  They've got Davey Gudgeon!  You know, he shouldn't really be in Hufflepuff, he's really brave, you know!" 

              It seemed to Siandra like the third-year was supporting Hufflepuff, so it was surprising when the third-year continued, "But I'm going to be supporting Ravenclaw."  

              "Why?" asked Siandra before she could stop herself.

              "Well…er…_certain _reasons," the third-year stated dreamily, looking toward the ceiling.  Siandra gave her an encouraging smile.  When it must have been after midnight, there was a motion behind the portrait hole and within minutes, while the whole of the common room transfixed upon the hole, Professor Pimea emerged, looking menacing.  

              "What is this?" she asked calmly, but clearly suppressing anger, "Why are you up so late.  Oh yes…Quidditch." 

              She paused, slowly breathing in, and then her gaze met Siandra's.  She stared coldly at her, as if surveying her, her eyes narrowed in to slits.  As she seemed to be measuring Siandra up, Siandra's thoughts darted unwillingly to the mysterious necklace, hidden in her cabinet drawer and locked with the silver key.  

              "Go to bed now, students.  Quidditch certainly isn't as important as lessons, and when you become well learned, you will understand that Quidditch merely falls into a category of childish dreams.  I will expect you to be in bed by twelve-fifteen.  Good night," she ended harshly and crisply walked out of the dormitory.  There was some frantic scurrying around as everyone scuttled to get into his or her beds as not to be reprimanded by Professor Pimea.  Siandra ran up the spiral staircase and hurriedly climbed into bed.  She hadn't before remembered Professor Pimea as being that mean and strict.  Leanne turned off all of the lights before anyone was actually ready to go to bed and the whole of Gryffindor house was suddenly darkened.  Siandra stayed awake, pondering.  She heard the scuffling behind the portrait hole again and some one's clicking shoes walking around the common room below her.  She heard them clunk up the bare wooden, chipped boys' staircase and she supposed that she was checking the boys' dormitories.  Siandra listened intently, and soon hear them clunk back down.  They were in the common room, and then there were the soft and small steps up the worn carpet.  She knew that her dormitory was first, and soon she heard the hollow creak of the door opening and a sliver of light came through.  Siandra dug herself deeply under the covers and tried to still her movements and pretend that she was asleep.  Somehow, it must have slipped into real sleep because she never heard Professor Pimea leave the dormitory and soon she was having a dream.  

There was Professor Pimea standing in robes that looked like the ceiling in the Great Hall and she was demanding that Siandra give her the necklace.  When Siandra refused, Professor Pimea threw the sky-like cape over Siandra's head and she dissolved into the floor.  Siandra woke up with a start, feeling as though there was something about that necklace that she couldn't quite place.  She groggily walked over to the silver water pitcher by the large window and poured herself a glass of cold water.  She slowly took the water, while drinking it, back to her bedside table, got into bed, and soon fell asleep.  

            Despite their nighttime arousing, the Gryffindors woke up bright and early the next morning.  They walked together cheerfully down to breakfast and ate quite a lot of it in tense excitement.  Siandra could see Sennin pushing a large plate, overflowing with eggs, toward the Ravenclaw Quidditch captain and the captain refusing it.  She wondered how much her nerves would act up if she was on a team.  

            Nine o'clock seemed to come much too soon and she and Claire stood up from the table and hurried to get a good seat in the stands.  Claire was busy talking to her about how she had never been to a Hogwarts game and she wondered what it would be like.  Siandra wondered too.  It turned out that they were definitely early.  There were only a few seats taken, so they easily made their way to a good spot on the stands.  

            Siandra had brought _A Quidditch Handbook_ to the match and planned to read it if the match didn't start right away.  As she read, the stadium filled up with people.  A few people had even dyed their hair blue or yellow or painted their faces, so Siandra didn't feel self-conscious at all about what she had finally decided to wear.  She had borrowed a very big floppy blue hat from a Hufflepuff girl named Bertha Jorkins who had accidentally ordered two.

            Even though she brought the handbook, she wasn't concentrating on it.  She had been to Quidditch matches before with her parents, and she was always exited about them.  She had adorned the walls of the spare bedroom up with posters that she had gotten from previous matches and had a large collection of Quidditch memorabilia at the bottom of her trunk.  

            Claire nudged Siandra and pointed to a newly set up dais between the stands.  

            "Is he the _commentator_?" Claire asked in disbelief.  A bored-looking boy with sloppy-looking, muffled brown hair had trudged slowly to the platform. He groped for the purple magical megaphone as if he was half-asleep, and he probably was.  

            "Good evening ladies and gentleman and welcome to the first annual Quidditch match," he drawled monotonously, "I'm sure that the Ravenclaw and Slytherin players have practiced hard this April so sit back and enjoy the film." 

            Claire's eyes were struck on him in disbelief.  After a blow from Madam Hooch's whistle, the players flew into the air.  

            "I'm sure that their meal of ham and broccoli helped them run so fast.  Oh look. Gryffindor scores.  Now the score is two hundred and eighty-eight to five for Beuxbatons —"

              "AAARRRGGHHH!" roared Claire, "Who gave this genius his brains?" 

              He happened to be telling them just then. 

              "My mother dropped me on my head when I was little didn't hurt in the least. It's the ham and broccoli, like I said it makes you strong."

              Siandra wasn't paying attention to the commentator.  

              "The Durmstrang keeper is shown the red card.  Look, what an excellent pass he passed.  He's a superb seeker.  Oh, look.  The beater has gone into a dive.  He's seen the quaffle."

              The seeker had indeed gone into a dive, thinking that he had seen the snitch.  Someone's hand closed around the tiny golden ball and — 

              "FOUL!" screamed Madam Hooch.  It was of course a foul, and surprisingly by Hufflepuff.  The Hufflepuffs' chaser, Lenna Orlin, had known that unless their seeker put on a sudden burst of speed, the capture was hopeless, and so she caught it herself.  

              " — Waffles are proven to contain considerable amounts of Vitamin C and are eaten every day by professional Quidditch players like the ones you are viewing today — "

              It didn't look like anyone was enjoying, or even listening to the commentator.  Perhaps he was awake when he tried out for the job.  But Claire and Siandra had had enough.  Ducking low so to not block others' view, Claire and Siandra scurried across the stands to the dais.

              "EXCUSE ME MR. COMMENTATOR?" asked Siandra in a very loud voice, "WE ARE GOING TO TAKE OVER YOUR JOB NOW. THANK YOU."

              Claire pressed him away from the platform and tugged the megaphone out of his grip.  He didn't seem to mind at all.  In fact, he slumped against the stands and started to snore.  

              "Hufflepuff in possession! Ooh, and Carol _nearly_ takes the Quaffle but Eie swerves out of the way just in time!" Claire yelled. 

              Siandra put her head near the megaphone, "Hufflepuff's chaser Eie speeds towards the goalposts with the quaffle in hand…and enters the scoring area.  It's just one on one now, as Eie will attempt to beat the Ravenclaw keeper.  These Hufflepuff chasers seem very unpredictable.  Sometimes they will have very acute aim, and sometimes they will miss a house two feet away.  Eie throws the quaffle and — "

              "YES!" yelled Siandra and Claire at the same time, "SHE DOESN'T SCORE!" 

              "Er, sorry about that," continued Siandra, "Eie is stopped by an _excellent _move from the Ravenclaw keeper and the quaffle is immediately taken by what's-his-name, of Ravenclaw.  What's that? Oh, sorry, the Ravenclaw chaser _Goodell_immediately claims possession of the quaffle. He passes to Hill who — ooh, misses! But never mind that, the Ravenclaws are still in the lead with a stunning score of thirty to nothing.  And — "

              "Was that the snitch?" interrupted Claire, "Hufflepuff seeker Torney dives down accompanied by Johnson of the Ravenclaws not far behind — " 

              Siandra was glad that she wasn't commentating.  Johnson was gaining on Torney, he was ahead, he raced downwards, held his hand out for the snitch and — 

              "YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSS!" shouted Claire and Siandra. Siandra continued, "Ravenclaw wins by a shocking one hundred and eighty to nothing!  RAVENCLAW WINS!" she yelled over the turmoil of the Ravenclaw fans, "AND THE HUFFLEPUFF SUPPORTERS ARE SHAKING HANDS WITH RAVENCLAWS! A NEVER-SEEN-BEFORE WIN, BY ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY, WOW!"  

              After both Claire and Siandra had happily shouted the results, they left the megaphone on the stand and hurried off into the castle.  

              "Wow, I can't believe that I was the commentator for Quidditch — that was awesome!" said Claire.

              "Yeah, I just can't believe that other guy actually got picked for the — erm, hello Professor Pimea."

              They had been so busy talking that they had not noticed Professor Pimea looming in front of them.          

              "Come with me!" she said tugging them into a nearby office.  Before they got to the office however, she whispered, "Stay angry." 

              A figure with a blue hooded velvet cloak looked up from the desk.  It was Professor Comora.

              "Viviana, you have seen the Quidditch match, have you not?"

              Professor Pimea scrutinized Professor Comora with one of her unblinking stares and, to Siandra's surprise, Professor Comora matched it and, without waiting for her to answer, said, "Then I will leave them with you to have the appropriate measures taken.  Ordinarily, since I am their head of house, I would do it, however, I have other business to attend to." 

              And with a swish of her cloak, she walked out the door.  

              Professor Comora looked straight at them.

              "Now, I have a good idea what Elena meant by the 'appropriate measures'.  You have interrupted (erm) choice commentators whom the staff have specifically chosen to guide us while we watch Quidditch and you, by no authority of us, have deprived them of the rights chosen by us."

              Claire and Siandra tensed and got ready for a severe reprimand possibly detention.

              "But, just a warning will do for now, because I'm sure that we all appreciated it.  And oh, I almost forgot, commentating trials for the next match are December first." 

              Amazed with their good luck, Siandra and Claire ran out of the office and up to the common room to celebrate with the rest of the Gryffindor students.   

  



	11. The Trials

          a/n: This is most likely not my favorite chapter — it's mostly a filler.  Another sad attempt at Quidditch is mentioned, but it is brief and nothing is really described — just how I like it.  By the way, if you see odd hyphens (and I hope you know what a hyphen is; I have a very long rant about that) that is just because when it's in Word, it was most likely a long word at the end of the line that needed to be hyphenated and I forgot to take out most of them.

T H E   T R I A L S

M

adam Hooch, of course, was leading the try-outs for the Quidditch commentating.  She at first explained that normally the commentator picked at the beginning of the year would stay commentator for the whole year.  However, commentators were also not allowed to be asleep on the job and this particular commentator's job was completely under the standards and lackluster.  Claire and Siandra joined the increasing line of students anxious to get their place at the commentating stand.  Everyone was chatting excitedly until Madam Hooch blew one sharp blast on her whistle.  

              "Foul!" whispered Claire and they both giggled excitedly.  

              Madam Hooch stepped up to the podium and explained, "The Hufflepuff Quidditch players and the Slytherin players have been kind enough to play a model match for us to commentate on.  When I call your names then you will step up here to the podium and commentate on what they are doing like a normal Quidditch match.  All right, Mr. Florence, you're first."    

              They boy who she called Florence stepped up as the players took their positions in the mock match.  

              "And welcome," he called to the empty stands, "to the second Quidditch match of the year, featuring Hufflepuff versus Slytherin!  The players take their positions and on the blast of the whistle — oops, sorry, we don't have a whistle today — the players are off!  And Jenkins immediately claims possession of the Quaffle…."

              It looked at first as though he was going to be their toughest competitor.  However, as the match heightened in excitement, he seemed more intent on watching it than commentating and was mostly saying things like "ooh!" rather than who was scoring or had the Quaffle.   When the Slytherins caught the snitch, the trial was over and he stepped out of line and ran back into the castle after being congratulated by a fluffy blond-haired girl ("Oh, Florence! You were definitely the best!").  

             Next was a group of three Hufflepuff boys who kept butting into each other's commentating saying things like, "Are you actually watching?  Think about what you're saying! That goal was Hufflepuff's! Let me talk.  Why are you cheering?" 

              It reminded her of something in a book of magical creatures about the runespoor, a snake with three heads that fought frequently. 

              Finally, there was only one person in front of them.

              "And Slytherin wins the match!Yeah Hufflepuff, you erm, both did great!" yelled Thomson, the boy currently on the podium.  He leapt off the stand, raced hurriedly into the castle and —

              "Apolina!  Come on up to the stand!" 

              The girl directly in front of them stepped up.  Just after she had finished her commentary on the match, it would be their turn.  

              "They're off…goal for Slytherin…goal for Slytherin…goal for Slytherin…goal for Slytherin…goal for Slytherin…goal for Slytherin…Slytherin wins, wasn't that a surprise!" 

              "Mary and Melissa, come on up here!" yelled Madam Hooch.

              "Hey! Wait! You've forgotten us! Us, you know, right here, HELLO? ARE YOU LISTENING?  EXCUSE ME, BUT WE'RE BEFORE MARY AND MELISSA!" 

              Madam Hooch suddenly noticed Claire and Siandra talking very loudly to her, "But you've already had _your _audition, we saw your spectacular performance a few weeks ago and I figured that you'd be entering.  Now off to the castle with you, results are posted on Monday." 

              Claire and Siandra disappointedly scampered up the Hogwarts stairs.   

The first snow was upon the castle.  Even the muggles who were said to see only a dilapidated ruin when they looked in on the wonders of Hogwarts should have at least, or at least Siandra thought, seen a snow covered dilapidated ruin.  Two days after the tryouts, Professor Pimea came into the Gryffindor common room with a large clipboard and said that she was taking names of those who wanted to take the train home for the holidays.   Professor Pimea came to her finally, and tried to persuade her to take herself and her stuff home for the holidays.  Siandra thought that it was just to get her away from the school since she thought that Professor Pimea didn't like her.  And as much as she would have liked to contradict Professor Pimea, she actually _did _want to go home for the holidays and visit her parents.  So, with partial reluctance because she thought it might be fun to see Hogwarts at Christmastime, she signed her own name down on the list and asked Lily if she could borrow her owl.  

              "Sorry," she said, "She's out delivering some presents to my grandparents and my mom — "

              "Okay, yes, and your dad.  Okay.  I just need to tell my parents that I'm coming home," replied Siandra.

              "How about the owlry?" asked Molly who had just heard their conversation, "Just pick up one of the school owls!" 

              "I didn't think of that, thanks," 

              Siandra rushed up to the dormitory, grabbed a bottle of ink, stuck a quill between her teeth, and headed up the many flights of stairs to the owlry. 

              It was a cold, drafty, circular room with open windows and a floor covered with droppings, pellets, and crushed skulls of things that she didn't even want to know about.  There was roost upon roost of owls, towering up to the high ceiling, which displayed a decorative mural of some Greek hero with an owl on his shoulder.  Siandra managed to find a clean space to kneel down and scrawl a letter to her parents:

Hi Mom and Dad,

              I've decided to come home for the Christmas holidays.  Is that okay with you?  Professor Pimea said that the Hogwarts Express would drop me off at King's Cross Station at three o'clock next Saturday.  Can you make it then, or should I order some of those wizard people who drive the muggle carriages?  I don't even know where we live anymore, I don't think I saw the new house.  Remember the Dervish and Banges catalogue that I left before I went to Hogwarts?  Could you send that, I want to use it to do my Christmas shopping.  Thanks!

Miss you,

Siandra

              She quickly sealed the letter and then was about to give it to the nearest owl, when she remembered that other people kept their personal owls in there too.  How was she going to find which ones were the official Hogwarts owls?  While she was worrying and wondering if she should go down to the common room and bring someone up, she saw that a number of them were bearing little gold tags on their collars with the letter "H" engraved.  She supposed that it stood for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry and so she took one of them down, addressed the letter, and sent it tumbling out the window. Then she brushed off her hands and took her writing supplies down to the dormitory.

              "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday to Molly — "

              Betty was marching a rather disgruntled Molly through the dormitory doors.  

              "Molly!" exclaimed Siandra, "It's your birthday?  Oh, yes, I got you something…"

              Siandra hurriedly rummaged around in her suitcase, brought out something from her bag, and hurriedly tied some fluxweed around it in a little bow.  

              "Here it is," she said holding out something.

              "Your wand?" she asked hesitantly, looking at the long, wooden stick tied with a piece of her potion-making kit.  

              "Er…no," she said, fishing around in her bag for something else to tie the fluxweed on to, "Erm…I got confused, see, now _this _is it," she said again, handing Molly something else from inside of her bag.

              "Oh, thanks, a unicorn horn!  It's so pretty!" she complimented.  

              "And here's something from me…"

              Betty bustled over from the side of the room where her bed was carrying a package with some shiny wrapping paper and a perfect red bow.     

              Molly carefully unwrapped it and inside was a large box of chocolate frogs. 

              "Oh, thank you so much!  I think that the last chocolate frog I had was on the train to Hogwarts — "

              Just then Gina, Lily, and Leanne came bustling into the dormitory each carrying a package of their own to give to Molly.  Siandra wondered how they had possibly known that it was her birthday.  Molly sat on the bed and started unwrapping the present from Gina.  It contained a bottle of butterbeer.  Leanne's package contained a lime green sweater with socks to match it and Lily's present contained a silver-plated clock from Dervish and Banges.  Molly graciously complemented each present and gave everyone a ready-made thank-you card.  

              Then Siandra suddenly thought of something: where was Claire?  There was a scream suddenly coming from down the corridor.  Siandra rushed out of the dormitory then out of the portrait hole and down the hallway.  As she turned the corner she saw Claire staring at a piece of paper pinned to the wall.  

              "SIANDRA!" she yelled, "WE'VE WON THE COMMENTATING TRIALS, WE'RE THE COMMENTATORS NOW!"             

              "Oh, yay, good for us!" replied Siandra

              "Why aren't you as excited?" questioned Claire, "I thought that you really wanted to win."

              "Well, I am really exited, but I kind of, er, thought some one was attacking you," said Siandra, looking rather nervously at the bottom of her robes but smiling slightly.   

              "Oh, sorry."

              "So, when do we start?" Siandra asked, her excitement slowly mounting.

              "The Tuesday after Christmas break!"   

               They both made a silent cheer in the hall celebrating their good fortune.  

  



	12. The Dusty Volume

a/n: Another filler-ness…lalalala…. You (if there is indeed anyone reading this now) are probably quite tired of my ranting at the beginning of each chapter, yet I continue to do it.  Why?  Because I like ranting…and talking to myself.  This chapter has a nice little taste of Snape in it, something I don't have very often because the "schoolboy antagonist" position is partly shared by Sennin, who needs a much bigger role, in my opinion.  I like Sennin — he is one of the most well-rounded and believable characters in the Siandra stories and definitely my favorite. 

              T H E   D U S T Y   V O L U M E

M

olly reached groggily up to turn off her ringing alarm clock.  It was about five o'clock in the morning, but they needed to be up by then if they were to catch the Hogwarts Express back for the Christmas Holidays.  

              "Siandra!" she whispered sharply across the room.

              "Yurg," Siandra replied sleepily and slowly got out of bed.  All the lights were off for the night so that the others could sleep, so it was rather hard for her to find the nice blue-lined robes that she had picked out for the day.  Once she and Molly had both found their clothes and put them on, they sat down on the luggage they had packed the night before and waited.  

              They didn't have to wait long.  After about four minutes a delegation of smartly dressed house-elves marched quietly into the dormitory and levitated Siandra and Molly's trunks behind Siandra and Molly as they marched out.  

              When they got out of the girls' dormitories and into the common room, they were joined by James and Sirius, who greeted them sleepily as they were marched quicker by their elves.  They walked in silence until they reached the Great Hall where there were students pooling there from all of the house corridors.   

              Not having a clue what was going on or where to go from there, Molly and Siandra followed James and Sirius who almost lead them into the boys' bathroom and apparently did not know what they were doing either.

              Siandra heard a horde of feet coming toward them, and signaled to Molly.  Then the throng of people that was previously in the Great Hall stampeded by the bathrooms where Molly and Siandra and their house-elves joined them.  James and Sirius burst out of the bathroom (they were now each carrying a bag of Filibuster's Fireworks) and joined the horde too.      

              The students seemed to be racing in the general direction of a lot of parked carriages and once they reached them, they started scrambling into them.  Siandra and Molly along with their elves managed to cram themselves into the last one.  

              There was a little lurch and the carriage started to go — without any horses!  Siandra supposed that they must be invisible.  She looked up at the castle and noticed enviously that none of the lights were on in the Gryffindor dormitories yet.  They must be still _fast _asleep in their _nice_ warm beds.  In fact, there were hardly any lights on except for one in the teachers' dormitory.   

              Both Siandra and Molly were starting to drift back into sleep when the carriage gave a sudden lurch and stopped by the Hogwarts Express Station.  

              One of the house-elves nervously gave each of them a small poke and said, "You is waking up now small mistresses!  We is at the station!" 

              Molly gave a grunt and slowly woke up. Then she poked Siandra until she was awake too. As the train gave a loud whistle and the engine started to go, Siandra and Molly leaped out of the carriage and on to the train as it started to move.  They quickly undid the latch on the door, jumped in, and then closed it tightly again.  

              After giving their ticket to the official looking ticket-taker at the front of the train, they started to move through the aisle looking for a compartment that wasn't mostly full, because most of them were.  They each looked at one side and reported back at the small aisle leading to the conductor's room and the teacher's lounge.

              They figured out that there were two compartments that they would like to go in.  Siandra found one with a pair Ravenclaw girls occupying it talking about the properties of the Wingardium Leviosa spell.  Molly found a compartment with only Sennin reading a book occupying it.

             Molly thought that they should go join Sennin because he was only one person and was doing something quiet, but Siandra flat-out refused and they ended up going to ask the Ravenclaw girls if they could join their compartment.

              Once the Ravenclaws had agreed to let Molly and Siandra join their compartment they heard a voice behind them.

              "Is you staying here mistresses?" 

              Both Molly and Siandra jumped.  They had totally forgotten about the house-elves following them around.

              "Er, sure!" Molly replied looking at the Ravenclaws.  They didn't seem like the type that would suddenly kick them out.

              The house-elves levitated their luggage into the bin above the seat and with one final crack they disappeared.  

              "Did yours do that?" Siandra asked the Ravenclaw girls.  They nodded quickly and then turned back to talking about levitating.  

              "Shall we go?" Molly asked Siandra, motioning their head toward the Ravenclaws.  Siandra nodded and they skipped out of the compartment.  

              After a little while of wandering up and down the corridor, Siandra decided to go and ask James if he could help her with the transfiguration homework.  

              "Hey!" Siandra yelled and jumped around.  Something large had smacked into her which turned out to be the candy cart.  "Who's driving this thing?" she yelled down the hallway.  Just then a rather plump woman came running down the aisle. 

                "I'mmmm ssoooorrry deeeaaarrsss," she was yelling at the top of her lungs.

              They continued along the hallway towards James and Sirius' compartment, which, Molly found out, was labeled number forty and had a large candy cane hanging over it.  

              The trouble was that someone was already there and blocking the doorway.  

              "Excuse me, do you mind?" asked Siandra indicating to Snape that she would like to take his place.  

              "I'd rather not, so yes, I suppose that I do mind," he replied coolly, stepping over so that he was completely blocking the door.  "And what are you going to do about it?  Shoot sparks at me because you don't know how to do anything else?" he continued mockingly.  

              "Oh, shove off," said Siandra trying to shove Snape out of the way.  "Ouch!" she yelled.  Snape had drawn out his wand and sent some sort of curse hard at her arm. 

              "All right, one more curse and you're a mouse!" 

            Siandra had drawn her wand from her pocket and pointed it straight at Snape.  Unsure whether Siandra could actually turn him into a mouse, Snape sneered and said, "I'll leave you to practice your spells so you can say more than false claims at our next meeting and we'll be equally matched.  That should be more…fun." 

            Then he walked off towards the end of the train and Siandra slid open the door to the compartment where James and Sirius were residing.  

            "Not a lot of fun, are they?" Sirius remarked while trying to detach some melting chocolate frogs from his muffin container. 

            "They?" asked Molly, "There was only one of Snape!" 

            "_Oh, _so you have only met Snape then.  Wait until you meet Evan!" Sirius said, giving one great tug as the bunch of frogs came out from the muffin container.  

            "I don't really think I want to meet him," mused Molly sitting down.  Just then the lady with the cart came by their compartment and slid open the door.

            "Would you like any breakfast or snacks, dearies?" she asked, pointing at the cart and smiling, "Oh!" she had just noticed Siandra and Molly, "You're the little girls that my cart smacked into, aren't you!  I'm very sorry, baby angels, but I was surprised when some little tot said her mother was a prophetess that I made it smack down the isle. You know what? I'll give you one drink and one treat free!  Pick whatever you want."

            Siandra gazed through the many candies she ate on her first trip on the Hogwarts Express and noticed that the bottom of the cart was now labeled "Breakfast".   On the bottom there were toast with butter and cinnamon toast and hard-boiled eggs, croissants in chocolate and butter, strips of bacon, sausages, bagels, and the pumpkin pasties.  Siandra chose a pumpkin pasty and a small jug of pumpkin juice.  Molly chose some cinnamon toast to go with her pumpkin juice, Sirius chose some more chocolate frogs, and James chose a cauldron cake.  They ate in silence for a while then Sirius finished his frog and read his card aloud.  

            "Wow!  It's the inventor of dungbombs!"

            James, who was starting to drift off, instantly woke up and leaned over so he could see the card too and said, "Wow! Cool!"  

            Siandra looked at Molly and rolled her eyes and nodded at James and Sirius now pouring over Smelly Steven's autobiography. 

            "Bye!" Molly said waving as they walked out of the compartment and slid the door shut.  

            " — remember when we set those dungbombs off in the Slytherin common room — " they heard James saying as they were leaving.

            "Boys," Molly muttered.

             The country outside of the window was turning from wild moors to neat, prim, gardens of people oblivious to the scarlet train speeding past. 

            "Argh!" Siandra yelled.  She had just tripped over a book lying on the ground.  "Why is everything attacking and tripping and smacking into _me _today, eh?" 

            She leaned down and picked the book up.  It was something old and dusty.

            "Ooh, look!" said Molly, "It's old and dusty!"

            She turned it over; it was the same book she found in the forgotten corridor.            


	13. The Cab Driver

    a/n: As you might have noticed by now, I gain a strange, odd pleasure out of writing children and house-elfs.  I'm not sure why this is, but they are very fun, perhaps because of their insanity and unpredictability.  You might (or might not) be interested to know that 11 Venus Road, where it is mentioned Siandra lives in this chapter, is an actual place in London, right near the river Thames.  

I feel rather sorry for the poor cab driver.

T H E   C A B   D R I V E R

W

hen the Hogwarts Express slowed to a stop, Siandra rushed to where the Ravenclaw girls were still sitting and talking.  She then attempted to grab her luggage from the overhead bins without much success.  All she ended up with was a very hurt toe.

            "Yow! I'll add that to the list of things attempting to land me in the hospital wing today!" she said as the trunk landed with a thud on top of her foot. Then she wrenched her foot out from underneath of it and picked it up off of the ground with some difficulty.  Once she found the way out, she had to wait in a long line while a harassed-looking guard waited at the gate was issuing people through so as to not startle the muggles.  Once she got through, she pulled the letter that her dad had written to her.  It had a drawing of something called a "cab" that she was supposed to take.  It looked like a black lump.  She looked for a black lump and soon she found one.  There was a man standing outside of it.  She walked up to him. 

            "Are you the _cab driver_?" she asked, careful to pronounce every syllable.   

            "Well, _yeah._ What did yeh expect, a donkey?" he asked. 

           "Actually," Siandra continued, "I, er, did think there might be one since Dad told me that there were no horses, but that doesn't matter now.  Is this _cab _for Siandra Lorington?"

            "You thought there'd be _what?  _Oh, yer not still on about them donkeys are you?  I really don't have time to play foolish games.  Your parents told me to take you right to their home.  Yer trying to scare me off with this nonsense, aren't ya?  Not want to go home, do ya?"

            "I want to go home!" she said indignantly, "I just thought that there'd be a donkey!" 

            Then she gave that laugh that means something like "that was silly, but now all is well".  However she must not have done it right because the cabby gave her a confused look, asked what century she lived in, and told her to get into the car.  

            "So, you going home to visit yer folks for the Christmas Holidays?" asked the driver politely.

            "Yes, most of the people in Gryffindor are staying, but I wanted to visit my parents." Siandra replied, fondling the letter that her dad wrote.

            "So, where do yer go to school?" 

            "Hogwarts."

            "Never heard of it.  Where's it at?"

            "Oh, I think it's unplottable."

            "What are you learning about now?" 

            "Levitation."

            He seemed to be trying to get a normal answer out of her, but he didn't have very much luck at it.  

            "Er, do you go to a _special _school?" asked the cabby hesitantly.

            "Well it's very special.  Only certain people get to go there." Siandra answered promptly.

            "Ah, I see why she's got problems, the lass goes to behavioral school," he muttered to himself.

            "Not that kind of special school! I am outraged!  If I wasn't so bad at transfiguration, you would be a mouse right now!" Siandra yelled.

            And as if some odd magic were happening, the cabby lost control of the wheel for one moment, as it seemed to turn to rubber and then back again.  His eyes widened.

            "This is your house, right?"

            "No."

            "Is this it?"

            "No."

            "Is this it?"

            "No."

            "Is this it?"

            "That's the same house."

            "Oh. Is this it?"

            "That's a tree."

            "Oh."

            "Why don't I just give you the address?"

            "Erm, sure."

            "Okay, it's 11 Venus Road."

            "But — but, that's so — so _far _away!"

            "Oh, now _I _know what's up with you.  You're scared of the magic, aren't you?  Now you can just pull over on the side of the road and I'll perform a memory charm on you.  I haven't learned them yet, but I think I'll do just fine.  I don't _think _I'll make a mistake."

           "It's just that I've, er, not really had a teenage witch perform some sort of charm …wait, you said _memory charm?  _Oh, no yeh don'!  I want me memory!" 

            "Did I say memory?  I meant money.  Now just pull over here and I'll fix you all up.  Then you won't be scared anymore.  Anyway, my birthday's in April so I'm not really a teenaged witch quite yet."

            "Har har har.  I'm not getting out of this here car.  Nobody is gonna fool me!"

            Siandra then reached inside of her robes and pulled out her wand.

            "Even if you're not going to stop the car, I'm doing it anyway because it needs to be done.  Okay, you stop the car if you want." 

            "OBLIVIATE!" she yelled just as the driver slammed on the brakes.  

            "Do I know you?" he asked dreamily.

            "Not really, I'm just your passenger.  You're a _cab driver.  _You are driving me home."  Siandra explained to the bewildered driver.

            "Do I know how to drive?" he asked her in puzzlement.

            "Yes, of course you do!" she said hurriedly.  What if he had forgotten?          

            "So tell me your address." he commanded.

            "It's 11 Venus Road."

            "I know that address…I've been told it before…" he mused as he revved up the engine, "Oh, I know now.  It's the little lass with the special school!" 

            Siandra let out an exasperated sigh and let her face fall into her hands.  

            "Eleven Venus Road!  Out yeh go!" he yelled and Siandra hurriedly exited the cab and grabbed her trunk from the boot.  

            As the cab sped away down the street, Siandra examined the house that was her own.  It looked perfectly normal to her.  There was a small apple tree in the front lawn and a tall bamboo hedge leading to the front door.  It looked like only one story, but it could have a basement.  Siandra lugged her trunk through the hedge to the door.  It looked like just a garden door, so she didn't think it would be imposing to just open it.  It was locked.  

            "Alohamora," she whispered as she drew her wand out from her robes.  The gate swung open long enough for her to drag her trunk thorough it.  Then it closed softly.  She was lead into a garden on the side and a little door that lead into the house.  The garden looked ordinary enough.  That was until you saw exactly what was growling at you: the stone gargoyle by the door.  She set her trunk down and knocked gingerly on the front door with a piece of stained glass positioned over the handle.  

            "I'm coming…" was the muffled response from inside the house.  Siandra supposed that it was her mother.         

            The door swung open revealing the glowing face of her mother.

            "Welcome!" she beckoned Siandra into the house. "I'll take that," she nodded, indicating Siandra's overlarge trunk and drawing out her wand. "Wingardium Leviosa," she commanded as the trunk flew upward, directed by her wand.  Her mother lead her throughout the house and down a hall until it stopped.  There was a closet built into the end of it.  Her mother pointed to the room on the right.  "This is your room," she said.  Then she pointed to the left. "That's my room, if you need anything. Oh," she pointed to the closet, "That's where we keep the games.  We even brought gobstones and wizard's chess, but they're in the back of the closet."  

            Suddenly her mother looked at her watch and looked crestfallen.  

            "Oh no!" she gasped, "I have an important ministry meeting in three minutes, but I promised to take care of Reney's little girls…I _promised_ the ministry that I wouldn't use my time-turner for anything like this…"

            "I'll take care of the kids for you," offered Siandra.

            "…oh, and that must be them right now…would you?  Gotta apparate, good-bye honey!" she said and with a little pop, she disappeared.

            Siandra ran to the door to open it up for the visitors.  She had a little trouble with the lock, but she eventually got it.  

            "Hello, I'm…erm…" she said, trying to think of a muggle name to call herself.  She didn't know how suspicious muggles were about their names. "Andrea.  My mother isn't here right now, she had to go to a meeting, but I'm going to take care of your kids," she said, until she realized that she was giving her speech to the gargoyle because no one was there yet.  Then two little girls came skipping in through the door. 

            "Hi, I'm Andrea, come in.  My mom's at work so I'm taking care of you.  Isn't that just hanky-panky?"  She tried to throw in what she called "muggle vocabulary".

            The two yellow-haired girls walked in, looking up at her.

            "I'm Calandra.  I'm the youngest.  This is my sister Penelope.  She's the oldest."  

            "So, what would you like to do?" asked Siandra, collapsing in the bean bag chair by the window.  

            "I want to play a game.  I know lots of games." boasted Calandra.

            "Erm…I can clean your windows?" suggested Penelope.

            "Okay, Calandra, you can stay here for a minute while I set up Penelope with the windows.  Okay?" she asked.

            Then she walked over to the kitchen where there were a bunch of cupboards.  She opened the one under the sink and in it there were a lot of cleaning supplies.  Two spray bottles were in the corner.  She looked at both of them and picked up the round one.  

            "Here you are, Penelope, you can start over there." Siandra said, indicating the windows by the beanbag she just sat in.  Holding Calandra's hand, she walked over down the hallway and to the games cupboard and opened the door.  

            Calandra gave the cupboard a good, long stare and then said, "Hmm…what's that?" she asked pointing to the game on the bottom of the pile.  She tugged it out and with it came all the games stacked upon it and more.  It was quite a mess.  One toppled out onto the top from the back.  It was the chessboard.  

  



	14. The Professor

       a/n: Calandra — I like that name.  Anyway, "the Professor", the character that you'll meet in this chapter, is sort of a "submarine character" in that she comes up from time to time throughout the series when I need some random character to tell Siandra something important to the plot.  The place where the Professor lives is an actual place (part of a collage on the American east coast).  Of course, I made it much grubbier and the Professor's secret room doesn't actually exist…although there was a strange small door underneath my shelf that I never quite figured what it led to…  This chapter really should be called, "Siandra has a little too much fun with Muggle things" (although I seem to have had an annoying habit of not capitalizing "Muggle") because that's what happens, mostly.  Quite fun to write, as I remember.

Anyway, I probably should end my rant now seeing as this is an extra long chapter here.  

T H E   P R O F E S S O R

C

hess!" she squealed.  "I just learned how to play that game!  Let's play it! Chess! Chess! Chess! Chess!" 

            "Er…are you sure you don't want to play Memory?"

            "Yes!" she squawked.  "I want to play chess!"

            "Well, okay, I guess…" Siandra settled, pulling out the chessboard and pieces and bringing them over to the beanbag.  While carefully setting them up, Penelope continued washing the window.  Once they were perfectly set up, Siandra sighed and then drew her self up to as high as she could look while still sitting.  

            "Can we play now?" asked Calandra.

            "Not yet.  I have some important business to clear up."  She gave the chessboard the evil eye. "Now listen up, all of you." She seemed to be speaking to the chess pieces.  "I want you to not move at _all _during this game.  Let the players move you, and pick up the pieces that are taken. You understand?" The pieces nodded and then went back to being rigidly stiff.

            "Eeeew!" yelled Calandra.  She had just leaned back onto the window.  "It's all sticky!" 

            Penelope was still busily wiping the windows clean.  Siandra rushed over to Penelope and looked at the bottom of the spray bottle.  It read "HAIRSPRAY".  Then she quickly rushed back to the cleaning cupboard.  The other bottle read "Windows-R-Us".  

            After replacing the bottles in Penelope's hands, she turned back to the chess game. 

            Calandra moved her pawn first.  She was playing white.  Luckily, Penelope banged the window cleaner can at the exact same time Calandra moved so she didn't see the piece squirm ever so slightly.  Not that it was something a Muggle would notice anyway.  It was probably too small of a detail.  Siandra moved her pawn out too.  The first real slip came when Calandra moved a rogue knight into the center of the board.

            "HO HO!" the knight yelled, "I SMELL A PLOT BREWING!" 

            Siandra groaned.  She had forgotten to tell the pieces not to speak.  

            "Did you just hear my knight yell really loudly at your rook?" Calandra asked.

            "No!" Siandra replied quickly.

            "Neither did I," Calandra agreed.

            "Oh, why thank you!" exclaimed the black rook, "You've just told us of your plotting!"

            "Shut up!" Siandra hissed at the board before the white night could respond, "Don't _any _of you say a word!  This is a _muggle_we're playing with!"

            "What did you just say to my piece?" asked Calandra suspiciously.

            "Nothing!" pressed Siandra, "I said nothing."

            "Good. I thought you said nothing."

            The pieces continued on normally throughout the duration of the game.  It ended with a heroic capture of the white king (Siandra was very good at chess) by the black bishop.  After Calandra congratulated her, Siandra hurriedly picked up the board, dumped the pieces in the box, and smashed the lid on.

            "Ouch!" was the muffled response from inside the box.

            "Where did you buy this game?" demanded Calandra.

            "Dervish and Banges." Siandra answered automatically.

            "Where is Dervish and Banges?" asked Calandra suspiciously.

            Think really big, thought Siandra, think so big that she could never find out that it doesn't actually exit in the muggle world. Think — 

            "China."

            "Made in China, yes, but where is the Dervish and Banges store?"

            Think so big and so exotic that they have never even heard of chess and won't know what she means.  Think of a place where she will never go.  Think of a place like — 

            "Antarctica."

            "Ahh…" she said, "I see."

            A while later, there was a knock at the door.  

            Siandra opened the door to reveal a woman of average height with short auburn hair and a business suit on.  

            "Hi, you must be Siandra," she said.  "I'm Mrs. Reyney.  I'm here for Calandra and Penelope."

            "Just one moment," Siandra replied, running back inside.

            "Penelope, Calandra, your mother is here!" she yelled.  The two small girls came running, Penelope almost knocked over the easy chair in her haste, and ran up to Mrs. Reyney.

            "Mummy!" they called and landed with a clump at her sleek, red, alligator skin high heels.  

            "Thank you for taking over on such short notice, well…" she glanced at the small girls clinging fastidiously to her as if a sudden tornado was going to creep up and try to separate them, "I've got to go. Have a fun summer holiday!"

            She must really have a lot on her mind, Siandra thought as she slowly closed the door. Summer? There's snow on the apple tree!

*  *  *

            "Now remind me again what I have to do," Siandra said rather confusedly.  Her mother was trying to teach her how to use the phone by having her call her father at the restaurant without much luck.

            "The number's zero, dearie.  And remember that's the operator because I don't know the number, really."

            "How do I get there?" 

            "You put your finger in the hole there, and then you spin the dial until you get to the little white number that says zero.  Then you take out your finger.  It's quite simple, really."

            Siandra carefully inserted her index finger into the slot and then pulled it out again as quickly as if the phone had stung her.

            "But — which finger?" she asked.

            "It doesn't matter!" said her mother, exasperated.

            She dialed.

            "HELLO MRS. OPERATOR?" she yelled seemingly to a phantom in the room.

            "Talk _into _the phone, dearie," aided her mother, "and there's really no need to yell."

            "Is this Mrs. Operator?" Siandra whispered.  She was becoming thoroughly confused by this whole affair.

            "Speak loud-er but please do not yell.  You near-ly made me drop my phone in-to my col-slaw," the operator replied, over-pronouncing every syllable, "Do not think my name is op-er-a-tor. It is my title!" She sounded very proud of the fact.  

            "Er," Siandra replied in a normal voice, "I need to speak to a Mr. Lorington.  I think he's working at Pakuna's Indian Something-or-other. Can you get him?"

            "Of course," the operator replied, "Home phone or Pakuna's?" 

            "I'll have Pakuna's, please," replied Siandra.

            There was the sound of pages being shuffled. Then — 

            "The num-ber is nine seven zero, eight one zero five. Good Day."

            Siandra dialed once again.

            "Hello, Pakuna's Indian Cuisine, how may I help you?"

            "I'd like to speak to Mr. Kingsley Lorington. He's a waiter." 

            There was the sound of steam hissing, pots clanging, and fellow cooks yelling at each other about something to do with snapping turtles.

            "You mean Jivan.  I get him."

            "Er…Jivan?  I said Kingsley Lorington.  You must've, ah, _misheard _me."

            But it was already too late.  The man answering the phone had left it on the table and hurried off to get the Jivan man, whomever he was.

              "Kingsley here."        

            "Oh, good, it is you, Dad.  Mom just taught me how to use the tell-puh-pone!"

            "Telephone, honey," her mother corrected.

             "Well, anyway, I am glad it's you because the man answering the phone told me that he was going to go get Jivan…"

            "Jivan? Argh! Pakuna's thinks it will be a more ethnic experience eating here if we all take on foreign-sounding names no matter what our nationality.  Pakuna isn't even Indian, it's Miwok…well, I guess that _is _sort of like a different kind of Indian, but anyway, "my" name is Jivan Himesh Kasim.  Thank goodness I'm only here for three more weeks to fulfill the ministry requirement.  It's getting tiring having customers ask me to repeat my name again because I am so blatantly English.  It's a good thing you called, because there's something that I've been meaning to tell you."

            "Which is…"

            "Radelle would like to see you."         

            "Radelle?"

            "I believe that maybe you know her as 'the professor'?" 

            "Oh, er, yah, her.," Siandra replied.  She had always thought that 'the professor' was a man, not a woman.

            "Is that all right?"

            "Mmm…okay!"

            "I'll arrange it."

*  *  *

Siandra's mother drove her to the professor's house.  

            "She leaves the door unlocked, just go in." her mother told her.

            The apartment building didn't look in all that great of shape.  It looked cool from the outside, yes, with turrets and towers the traditional castle-ish look. On the inside it was a lot different and in desperate need of a caretaker.  Tiles were missing on the stairs, the curtains looked rather grubby, and she was sure that something hairy scurried across her boot on the way up.  Finally she reached room number three fifty two.  This was where the professor was allegedly housing.  It looked pretty small.  There was a rusty brass plaque on the door labeled Prof. R. P. Irving in old style italics.  She pushed the door open.  It creaked.  She passed through the door into a room that looked as though it hadn't been used for decades.  There was an old closet in the corner.  Thinking it might be another room, Siandra pushed the door open. 

            It was a rather sad-looking closet.  There was a faded ruffled skirt on a dry-cleaner hanger that said "We Love Our Customers" on it in fading print with a dull red heart representing "love".  There was a rusting wire hanger with a brilliant red skirt that displayed rust from the hanger it hung on. A wrap-around Hawaiian-Style skirt was draped on a bar.  Three towels, bleached crisp, were draped over an oddly positioned shoe rack, which included a pair of perfectly white tennis shoes, some dirt-encrusted sandals, and some tattered black slippers.  Also in the closet was a thin black velvet robe with silver runes down the sides and a golden necktie studded with moonstones.  To anyone else it could be a very fancy attire for a party, or a bathrobe, but it signaled to Siandra that the professor must have very good style sense.  It was the only thing in the closet that actually looked in use.  This room, Siandra thought, must be a disguise for the muggles.  There were dust coated, ragged-looking cardboard boxes on the top shelf.  Siandra closed the door and moved on.  There were two desks with not much on them.  One had a paisley cloth spread out on it and the other had a map spread like a place mat on it.  A neatly-made bed stood in the corner and above it, on a shelf, some personal items such as a dusty brush were set out on a purple bandana collecting dust like a magnet.  Above that was a pile of sheet music and music books and a weathered jean hat.  A dragon hide covered book was glowing beside it, the only thing that felt alive in the whole room.  It stood beside an ancient book of numbers and below that squatted a grimy kelly green purse with a pack of mints sticking out of it.  There was a little green door by the bed.  Siandra pushed it open and immediately her senses told her that this room did not fit the proportions of the apartment, the professor must've added it herself.  Almost crushed by boxes, textbooks, and a rather odd-looking tank of fireflies with a mooing cow design around the edge, sat the professor. 

            "Ah, yes," she said smoothly without turning around, "Your father told me to expect you."  The swivel chair she was sitting in turned around by itself so the professor was facing her.  She wore oval glasses just like Siandra, except with twinkling stars around the edges and had her brunette hair drawn up in a bun at the top of her head with a few curls hanging down at the edges.  

            "You, er, wanted to see me?" Siandra asked hesitantly.

            The professor took out her wand, muttered some words under her breath, and, with a shower of aqua sparks, there was a POOF and one of the empty boxes turned into a chair with painted cats running up and down the edges. 

            "Sit," she said, lowering her glasses and pointing to the mewing chair with her wand, "Yes, I always wanted to meet you, and give you some packages to take.  Anyway, I suppose that you know my niece, Eugenia Dawn?"

            "I don't think so.  She probably goes to Beuxbatons or some other school. I go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, you know."

            "Hmmm…so does she," the professor seemed to be thinking, "Maybe you know her older sister Gnora Jane, she goes to Hogwarts too, but she's in fifth year.  Or her younger brother Hammond?  He's only seven though, so he's only at PWS.  Anyway, Eugenia Dawn has glossy brown hair and deep blue eyes and she's rather pretty and likes hot chocolate and butterbeer and, well I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but we think she might have a crush on — "

            "Oh!" said Siandra suddenly, "You can't mean, not…Gina?"

            "That'd be the one.  I don't suppose that Rosmerta is a very common name.  Gina, then. Hmmm…"

            "You wanted to tell me something?" asked Siandra.

            "Just meeting Kinny and Ana's daughter.  I'll give you the presents when you leave. How's Kinny?"

            "He's taking on the job of 'muggle investigator'.  He's doing some reports on the lives of muggles so that we can 'better understand them'.  Right now he's at Pakuna's Indian Cruise-eez.  They call him Jivan Himesh Kasim there to be more ethnic."

            "Oh dear.  And Ana?"

            "Ministry work too.  She's in the AVDB.  The Administration of Valuable and Dangerous Books."

            "Ah, so she still loves books, that's good.  She always loved them.  I remember a pretty funny incident with a door handle, a parakeet, a ladle and, well, never mind.  So Gina then, you sure? And _I _thought her parents gave her a _nice _name."

            "Yes, so did my parents." Siandra replied rather glumly.

            "Who is teaching you this year?"

            "Hmmm…lets see," she ticked them off on her fingers, "For History of Magic I have Professor Binns — "

            "Always was a bore.  I remember falling asleep during one of his lectures.  Ana had to jab me with her quill seven times after the bell rang before I regained consciousness.  And I think my mother had him too…anyway, continue."

            "And Hooch and Pimea, Comora — "

            "Oh, I feel so sorry for you.  We were enemies when I was at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry in my day. Erk!"

            "But she's nice!" protested Siandra.

            "Maybe she's changed for the better, I doubt it.  Anyway, continue."

            "Leftner, Jigger, Ritznan and Moira."

            "Sounds like pretty good teachers. So, this is for Ana…"

            She pulled a dark blue book with shimmering golden stars in a rather medieval looking pattern out of a burlap sack.  It was bound in iron chains.

            "Er, what's with the chains? How dangerous is this ancient book you are entrusting to me?" asked Siandra suspiciously.  

            "You'll be all right if you don't sing lullabies to it, don't take it in the shower, and never let any tabby cat get near it."

            _"Okay…"_

            "And this is for you…"

            She drew a different book from the cloth bag.  It looked old.  Eighteenth century, about.  It was the style of the book of numbers in the next room.  

            "Ancient Amulets and Designs, wow, thanks!" praised Siandra.

            "And you'd better be going now.  I have some work that needs to be done. I have to authenticate this person's mixture." 

            She held up a crystal vial with some powdered red stuff in it. 

            "He claims to having the Philosopher's Stone.  The tosh people get out just for an article in the Prophet these days.  I'll bet it's just chalk! The number of fake alchemists these days.  Almost as many as the olden days way before me!  And that was when the common people didn't know about faking it and these fraud alchemists zoomed across the continent scamming people.  Raul is no better.  I know that his innocent looking powder is going to flunk that chemistry test right away.  It's going to…"

            The professor seemed to have forgotten about her so she lightly stepped off of the chair, which immediately became the grimy box again, and closed the door behind her softly.    

Siandra's mother was very pleased with the bound book.

            "Thanks so much, I've really been wanting that!"

            _You've been really wanting this chained tapestry book?  Where did you first see it anyway_, thought Siandra. 

            Over the winter holidays, Siandra had been assigned a few essays to do as homework.  For History of Magic, a boring essay on Leprechaun Involvement in Foreign Affairs of the Eighteen Hundreds was due.  There was some Transfiguration thing, she'd have to ask Lily about it.  Now she didn't think that Transfiguration was a favorite subject.  True, the first class was a success on her part, she had the prettiest clock of all and she helped fellow Gryffindors to do the same.  But Transfiguration was reaching an all-time low: she had pretty much lost the concentration and the frame of mind to change the objects, even though she could work out the calculations easily enough.  

            "If you're not going to do your homework, then at least go figure out the TV.  It's under the yellow cloth in the sitting room.  That'll get your brain working again."

            Siandra decided to take her mother's advice and walked up to the box. 

            "Hmmm…" she muttered to herself, "What's in here?"

            She tried fiddling with some of the little knobs at the bottom.  The Daily News Crew jumped into focus.  

            "Leprechauns!" Siandra yelled, "Don't worry, I'll get you out!"

            Her mother came running down the hallway.

            "What in the name of Merlin are you doing to that television? You are going to break it!" her mother scolded.  Siandra was now pulling violently at the antenna at the top as if it was some kind of lid to a box.

            "I've got to get the poor leprechauns out of here!" Siandra explained while still tugging at it.

            "No!" her mother shouted, "Don't!  Those aren't leprechauns, they're just pictures!"

            "They aren't?" Siandra asked turning away from the silver wire.  

            "No.  It's just pictures of muggles babbling away about their stock prices in toilet paper or whatever has gone down by a quarter of a penny.  Silly, really."

            "Oh," Siandra replied simply.  

Christmas Eve finally announced itself in the form of carolers.  Most of them were nice family groups, or older children trying to make money by the 'power of music'.  Mrs. Lorington baked up a batch of cookies for them in the shape of silvery crescent moons with real craters.  Anyway, this was the case until a batch of older boys showed up and sang very loudly and extremely out of tune versions of "Christmas is Coming".  Some neighbors came out and asked them politely to please stop and when they refused, stamped back inside their houses and boarded shut their windows.  Mr. Lorington was very angry about this.  He grabbed his wand and went out waving it at the boys.  He very angrily told them to stop the cacophony this minute or they would be horny toads the next.  There was a significant decrease in the amount of carolers that strolled by.  Most of them seemed to be singing blithely, then gaze at the Lorington house and run away in terror.  After Siandra and her parents finished off the rest of the moon cookies themselves, they turned the heater on and tucked themselves into bed.  It was all in all, a happy Christmas Eve. 

  



	15. Christmas Packages

          a/n: Ah, the gift-giving chapter.  I'm not sure quite why I enjoyed the Grand Warlock's Christmas Dinner Party…perhaps because it can be equated to so many parties I am sure all of you can remember attending, perhaps because it contains two clues about Siandra's identity (although this is ruled untrue by the fifth book) and perhaps because of Roxanne, who is quite interesting (although she doesn't seem like it right now) and I have a very clever way for her to fit into the actual Harry Potter series, thought it too will probably be discounted by the next book.

*looks at chapter header* Finally!  A chapter that doesn't start with "the"! 

C H R I S T M A S   P A C K A G E S

\/ A note on this weird thing that happens to that letter — don't even try asking me what's up with it.  I do not know. 

I

t was Christmas morning.  Siandra woke up bright and early to a note digging into her neck.  She picked it up, massaging her neck and saw that it was sealed with the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry crest.  She slit the seal and read:

Dear Millisandra Lorington,

          A very merry Christmas to you from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry.  The Hogwarts Express will leave from King's Cross Station the third of January at precisely ten o'clock.  Classes will begin the next day following the regular schedule.  We ask that you please do not bring presents or Christmas candy to class.  It is very distracting to the learning environment.  

Thank You, 

Anita Race

Department of Magical Transport

Christmas! Siandra had almost forgotten. She raced down the hallway and into the sitting room.  Both her parents were already there, chatting in puffy chairs by the warm fireplace. 

            "Good morning Siandra!" said her mother, "Look at the tree!"

            It was a magnificent tree.  It towered right up to the ceiling and on the top was a fluttering miniature angel holding a glowing star bedecked with moonstones.  The other ornaments on the tree included clear balls the same size, thickness, and complexion of soap bubbles, miniature hooting owls, silvery moons waxing and waning rapidly, glowing presents, ribbons and banners of runes, and fluttering, glowing faeries.  

            "Wow," breathed Siandra, "It's beautiful!  You'd better not invite any muggles over to Christmas dinner!"

            "You've got some cards, dear, better open those first." Her father pointed to a pile of cards and envelopes on the table.  

            It turned out that she had gotten greetings from Betty, Gina, Molly, Lily, Claire, Leanne, Sirius, James, and Remus.  Then she came upon an envelope with the initials R. P. I. in the seal. It read:

Dear Siandra,

     I hope that you have a merry Christmas.  Ana wrote to me and told me how much she adored the chained book, thank you for delivering it for me.  Do you like your symbol book?  I picked it out because it was my first ancient book, and it got me interested.  I am particularly fond of the twin necklaces and Rimsalt's Water Amulet.  Is Kinny off of that silly Jivan Kasim job yet?  You may be interested to know that Raul's so-called Philosopher's Stone was only chalk and he got called off for it without any press release. Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and the rest of the Loringtons, I have enclosed a package for you and your parents.  

Sincerely,

Prof. Radelle Peri Irving 

Siandra immediately felt guilty about not getting the professor a present.  But, after all, she had just met her. Then there was the usual pile of Christmas cards with cute little bluebirds basking in the snow from most of her relatives.  However, on the bottom, there was something different.  It bore no return address and was addressed only to "Miss Siandra Lorington" at "the muggle house". At the back there was a blue seal with only a crescent moon embedded into it.  She slit it, carefully took out the letter inside, smoothed it on the table, and read the following:

Dear Siandra,

            I think that you will enjoy this present that I 'made' for you, with help from Hagrid.  Since it's technically still not allowed to leave the school, you'll have to come and get it.  I've arranged for it to be picked up on Monday, four o'clock because I don't have any lessons that time, tell me if you do.  It'll be waiting with Hagrid at his hut by the edge of the grounds.  Merry Christmas!

Hagrid and X

            "What have you got then?" asked Mrs. Lorington.

            Siandra stuffed the letter from Hagrid and X back in the envelope and pressed the seal down.

            "Just letters from friends and relatives, and the professor," Siandra explained.  She didn't feel like telling her parents about Hagrid and X.  

            "These are from us," said her dad, pointing to some presents.

*  *  *

By the end of the morning she had gotten quite a lot of gifts.  She had hoped that maybe one of the owls sitting out on the deck belonged to her now, but they were all just resting from delivering gifts.  Oh well, maybe for her birthday.  Some of her favorite presents included a chocolate-covered chess set (eat the pieces you take!) from Lily, a knitting set from Molly, a lunar clock from the boys (James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus) and a Quidditch Commentator's Manual from Claire.  

            For a Christmas Treat, her parents decided to take her to a Christmas Dinner Party.  It was for wizarding families only so they could wear their normal clothes, normal for them, at least.    It was also near the ocean, so they piled on the family's BlueBottle.  It's a type of broomstick that is created especially for families (it was very long, easy to steer and affixed with a compass), so they had now trouble all fitting on it.  Her father draped his jumbo invisibility cloak over the family and they sped off. Her parents simply turned themselves invisible and sat on the covered broomstick.  Siandra had to be completely covered in the cloak, and it was a very old cloak, so it was not made so it was see-through.  All it did was basically the normal job of a fur coat, but made invisible the body parts and the objects it covered.  You could not see through it at all.  

            The flight passed without incident except for one time.  Siandra thought that she'd stick her head out to see what was happening in the coastline. She carelessly stuck her head out of the cloak.  A loud scream from the ground ensued, along with both her parents pushing her head forcefully back under.  

            "What were you thinking?" asked her mother, "A muggle saw a head floating in midair!  You're lucky no one took a picture.  Now your father has no memory balls left!  Keep you head under."

            Memory balls were a quick way to destroy a muggle's memory of a dangerously magical incident.  They looked pretty much like ordinary small beach balls, but they contained a strong memory charm.  The person they were bequeathed to (i. e. thrown at), as it said on the box, would lose total memory of the last minute five seconds after the ball touched them.  

            Siandra sulked for a while.  Why couldn't her parents just turn her invisible so she could see the outside?  After all, they were flying over the most picturesque parts of the country because the wizarding community chose the most deserted and serene places to operate.  The answer came to her almost immediately after she thought of the question: self-invisibility was very advanced magic, and turning other people invisible was even more risky.  Many a witch or wizard sent someone else who-knows-not-where while just trying to work invisibility.  Although some people purposely did this to enemies.  

            The building that housed the Grand Warlock's Dinner was stately and very elegant.  The beaming, short, auburn-haired witch at the door told them that the Grand Warlock's Dinner had been around since the Middle Ages.  In the Middle Ages, it only included male wizards, but now it includes everyone.  The estate was built especially for that purpose, designed by some regal wizard Siandra had never heard of, and originally housed the guests for the night.  The Loringtons left before she could tell them more, because they were already blocking up the doorway and had about ten people behind them.  

            They hurried on.  Siandra followed her parents inside.  It was very beautiful.  There were at least ten crystal chandeliers on the ceiling.  There was so much gold that the whole ballroom sparkled and gave off light.  There was a grand staircase in the left corner, it was carpeted with some blue velvety thing and it swept up to the next floor where some people stood on the over looking balcony with glasses of champagne clinking.  There appeared to be rooms up there.  Perhaps it was still used for overnight guests. On the right side, there were four long French windows with curtains drawn back.  A long buffet table covered in a glowing white cloth spanned the left side of the room.  Siandra was not pleased to see the absence of chocolate frogs.  She still needed the Albus Dumbledore card badly.

            She looked over her shoulder at her parents and stopped gawking at the room.  They were talking to a plump, chatty lady with short blond hair.  Siandra joined them.  She soon learned that the lady had five children.  Their names were Macy, Rina, Lori, Lara, and Shawna.  Four of them liked the tarts she baked for them, but Macy did not.  Lara was sick with a cold and Shawna was horrible at aiming her wand.  Lori complained about her broom quite often.  Yesterday Rina turned her pair of sneakers into a pair of mice.  The lady was very proud of this, because it was very advanced, but not so proud when the neighbors complained weeks later about a mouse epidemic.  She bought them a tri-colored cat from the store.  Its name was Sarlene.  It turned out the neighbors did not like yellow cats so they had to return it and get a blue cat.  Its name was Saltine.  They liked this cat because…

            Siandra turned away from them.  She could not see anyone that she knew besides her parents and she did not want to go back to them.  She swore if she stayed with that lady any longer she was going to fall asleep on the spot.  Not knowing anywhere else to go, she got a white crackle plate from the pile and stationed herself near the cheese.  There were many kinds of cheese there: Cheddar, Brie, Gouda, blue cheese, Swiss cheese, smoked cheddar, and a number of others that she didn't even know what they were called.  There was also an assortment of different crackers.  She decided to sample them all. 

            Before she got to the unknown cheeses, she saw someone that she did know.  She had long, straight, blond hair and dark green eyes.  She was wearing a dark green velvet robe to match her eyes and it did, perfectly. The robe was covered in a golden medieval-looking diamond criss-cross pattern that matched her hair perfectly also.  It was her friend Roxanne from the village where she used to live!  

            "Roxanne!" 

            Roxanne looked around in puzzlement for a moment, then saw Siandra. 

            "Oh, Siandra! Hello!" she said, "I haven't seen you in a while."

            "Thank goodness!" said Siandra, she sounded relieved, "Someone I know here besides my parents!"  

            "Good for me too," she gestured to a couple in deep purple robes with showy golden star buckles, "My parents are talking about some silly trade.  There's not much to do here, is there?"

            "No, I don't think so.  Plus, I'm getting really thirsty.  Have you seen any water anywhere?  All I saw was that thick punch over there, ick!   The cheese is really good, though, did you try it?"

            "No, I'm not really into cheese — "

            "You're not into cheese?!"

            "No, but there's a fountain over there for water."

            "Are you sure it's clean?  Generally pigeons are the only ones that actually drink out of fountains."

            "Look, then."

            Roxanne pointed to the fountain.  Siandra thought it was very pretty at first glance.  It was made out of whitish marble and it featured a woman in Roman style robes holding a large scepter spear thing with a very odd hat on.  There were long curls coming down from under the hat and Siandra thought she was pretty, that was, excluding the hat.  A small serpent curled around her spearish item was spitting out clear water and so was an owl perched on her shoulder.  Her cupped hand held ice cubes.

            "That's handy, isn't it!" said Roxanne looking at it.

            Both Siandra and Roxanne grabbed sparkling glasses from the table.  Siandra's had a golden owl with spread wings on it.  So did Roxanne.  They both took some water out of the spitting owl and Siandra scooped some ice out of the statue's hand.  

            She heard some people talking to their drinks.  They were saying things like 'fruit punch', 'sherry', 'strawberry juice', and 'butterbeer'.  Siandra decided to try this.  One of the things she heard was 'gillywater'.  It sounded interesting so she decided to try it.  

            "Gillywater," she told her water.  It immediately turned silvery.  

            Roxanne tried this too.

            "Lemonade," she said to hers.  It did nothing.

            "Lem-on-ade," she said, carefully pronouncing every syllable. It refused to remain anything except water.

            "LEMONADE!" she shouted.  Quite a few people jumped.  Roxanne gave them a friendly nod and a smile and turned back to giving the cup the evil eye.  

            "Prod it with your wand, then," encouraged Siandra.  Roxanne took out her wand from a fold in her robe and prodded the glass with it.

            "Go on, then, turn to lemonade," she said while still poking it.  Not a good idea.  The glass exploded into the air and disappeared, but that was only the glass.  The same does not go for the liquid inside. Most of it landed on her head.  Not only that, but it had chosen this time to finally abide by her wishes and turn to lemonade.

            "ARGH!" she yelled.     

            Roxanne was given a wide berth after that.

            The rest of the night passed slowly, but not as slowly as it had been going before she found Roxanne; at least she had someone to talk to (and the fountain too).  She quite liked the fountain, before the night ended, she had turned her water into raspberry lemonade, Mint Fizzer, seltzer, strawberry apple juice, spritzer, lime slushie, and raspberry Italian soda.  After they left the building, Siandra said good-bye to Roxanne and regretfully pulled the invisibility cloak over herself.  Now that it was night, she was rather glad because it kept her warm.  Only three more wonderful days of winter vacation.  Ah well.  

  



	16. After New Year's

a/n: *huddles in a corner* My computer is asking very strangely…and scaring me.  I hope that you can read this…it might be covered in blackness… *shounds insane*  Or maybe its all jumbled up, like it is right now so I can;'t see what I;'m typoing at all…and you know I usually haver perfect (nearly) grammar…  I also just realized that I had spe hyphenated "thank you" .  I have a VERY long rant (even for me) about it…even longer (if you will believe) that nthe one about people who don't even know ehat a hyphen is.  Please, PLEASE excuse the horrible typo-ness.  Thank you and enjoy.  I REALLYT h hiope that next time  I will be able to see what I am writing.  *slowly goes insane from the insane computer*  

A F T E R   N E W   Y E A R S

T

hree days after New Years, Siandra sat in her bedroom.  She was writing a letter.  This one, hopefully, was going to be her last thank-you.  It was to Remus.  She had decided to send thank-you letters separately to all the boys who pitched in on the lunar clock. She had gotten so far as to say:

Dear Remus,

     Thank you so much for pitching in on the lunar clock you got me. It's really

Here she stopped.  What was there to say about a lunar clock? She liked it a lot, because it was very pretty, and…it was useful for astronomy!  She continued:

pretty and I'll use it a lot for astronomy.  It's really cool how it shows you exactly how the moon looks that night.  Now I won't have to do the 'home moon gazing' astronomy homework, thanks! 

     Is your mother better?  Send her my good get-well wishes.

Thanks again,

Siandra

Satisfied, Siandra took it out of the magical typewriter and gave it to her father's owl.  It flew off out the window.

            "Siandra!  Time to go!"

            Siandra checked her watch.  It was nine o'clock.  Time to go.  She wondered why her parents hadn't warned her sooner.  It seemed that she was always late.  

            Her bags were already loaded.  The trip there was mostly uneventful.  A few muggles looked at her in her school robes a little oddly, but the only thing worth mentioning was that she was finally on time and got her choice compartment, with Molly.  This time they got their own compartment.  Molly already had her knitting out.  She appeared to be knitting a Dutch Blue scarf with yellow pentagons on it.  

            "Oh, hello, Siandra!  Did you get my knitting?"

            "Yes, thanks! I'll get it out," she searched her bag and drew out her knitting.  She had barely started, but her casting on looked pretty good for a beginner, "Did you get my dream pillow?"

            "Yes! 'S neat."

            Siandra started settling in.  She used the pillow provided by the train and put it between her shoulders and the base of her neck.  Ah…comfort. Then she remembered that she still had one more thank you to write: to X.  She dug her quill, some ink, and a pad of lined parchment out of her bag.  It was rather dangerous, writing on the train, but her mother had bought her a special bottle of no-spill black ink for Christmas.  She wrote the following:

Dear Stranger,

            Thank you for the present I have not 

yet received.  I'm sure it will be very 

nice.  Then again, not knowing whom you 

are, it might very well not be.  No, I have 

no classes at four.  How am I to restrain your

present on the way back?  This, of course,

is going on the assumption that it is something

very large and hairy

No, she decided, this would not do.  She decided that she would have to write the thank-you note after she received the present.  But she did have to write a note, because Hagrid and X had asked her to tell them if she was free at four on Monday and she had to respond to that.  She decided on a simple letter, then glanced over at the sleeping Molly.  She appeared to have fallen asleep during a game of solitaire with exploding snap cards.  Oops, this was not a good thing to do.  Exploding Snap cards were very different from muggle cards because at every moment there was a possibility of them exploding.  These particular cards were already smoldering.  Siandra thought that she'd better wake up Molly before they exploded or she'd get a real big shock in her sleep.

            "Molly, wake up," Siandra coaxed, while poking her, "Your Exploding Snap cards, they are smoldering!"

            "…no, no, not the tomatoes…" replied Molly sleepily.

            "Molly, your cards are going to — "

            BOOM!

            Molly jerked out of the seat.

            "Oh no!" she cried, "_Which _seat cushion am I supposed to use for a floatation device? Oh why didn't I ever listen?" howled Molly.

            "It's just your cards," said Siandra.

            "Oh," she replied, "I'll pack them up then, shall I?"

            Siandra decided that she'd better write the note to Hagrid and X.  She decided on just a simple note, then wrote the following and sent it off with an owl she borrowed from some second-year Hufflepuffs in the next compartment:

Dear X,

            Thanks for the Christmas note. 

 Yes, I am free at four and looking forward

 to the gift.  Will I need to be armed with 

anything other than my wand? Thanks,

Siandra

After that, Siandra decided that she'd better rest up for classes.  She looked at the blurry countryside speeding past and slowly, silently slipped off into slumber.  

            Woken by a very loud honking noise, Siandra jumped out and off of the train with her knitting (she decided that she would show Molly how much she enjoyed her present)  had in one hand and the train pillow in the other.  Thinking she probably shouldn't be taking the pillow with her, she flung it inside the train and stepped off.  She crammed into a horse-less carriage with Molly.  Sirius and James soon joined them.  

            " — and then they told me that you are only allowed _one _bag of dungbombs per child and that the ministry had an order.  The _Ministry _is using dungbombs?  Ah yes, what was it? Builders of a Better World.  The Ministry using dumbombs definitely qualifies as a better world — " 

            Nothing new there.

            "James? Sirius?" asked Siandra, "Would you mind getting Remus down if he's in the  boy's dormitory?  There's something I have to give you all."

            "_Okay_, what about Peter?" asked James.

            "He didn't chip in to the lunar clock, did he?" asked Siandra.

            "No, he went to an Elves concert.  You liked it?"

            "Yes. It's very clever how it shows you exactly how the moon looks, complete with eclipses and halos!  Thank you!"

            "Yes, we have one too I thought you might like it."

            There was a lurch and the carriage stopped.  They hopped out and went through the Entrance Hall and to their dorms. 

            James and Sirius dragged Remus out of the dorm (apparently he was reading some book about a subject he wouldn't reveal to her) and Siandra gave them their letters.  

            While they were opening them up, Siandra asked Remus, "How's your mother?" gently.  

            "What? Oh, yeah.  She still has…er…Pollinania Disease."

            Some sniggers from James and Sirius.  

            "Oh," continued Siandra in the same voice, "That's too bad.  Isn't it the one where they have those horrible attacks every month?  It's so nice that you go and see her.  I'm sure that it helps her through it.  But wait, weren't there two attacks last month?"

            "Ah, yes," said Remus, wiping away an imaginary tear, Siandra was too busy feeling sorry for him to notice that it wasn't real, "It's very rare for this to happen, once in a blue moon, as they say, and this happens when the disease gets more viol — "

            This was all together too much for James and Sirius.  They both burst out laughing. 

            "Honestly, you two!" scolded Siandra, "Think of poor Remus!"

            But it seemed that 'Poor Remus' didn't really need thinking of because he was laughing too, only carefully covering his face up with the opened letter.

"Boys," scoffed Siandra climbing up the steps to the dormitory.  She was going to go make sure that she was free on Monday four o'clock.  She didn't want to have Hagrid and X waiting. She went and looked at her schedule.

            "I'll really have to hurry to be able to make it from Charms, it ends right at four!" she exclaimed. 

            "What?" asked Lily who was finishing the Transfiguration essay that Siandra had forgotten to do.

            "Nothing!" said Siandra quickly, covering up her schedule.

            "I know something's up, otherwise you wouldn't be looking at your schedule.  You don't really need them any more." Lily replied.

            "Well…" said Siandra.  Lily was very nice and she was sure not to tell anyone or think that she wrote the letter herself, "I got this letter from someone that didn't tell me his or her name.  They said that they bought me a present and it'll be waiting on four on Monday with Hagrid.  I'll have to race from Charms to get there!"

            "Hmmm…you could ask Leftner to let you leave early…"

            "Yeah right," Leftner was the Ravenclaw head of house. 

            "I'll think of something.  Anyway, we can always ask James, I'm sure he can tell us how to get to leave early."

            "But then we'd have to tell him about the note."

                "Hmmm…" Lily said, smiling thoughtfully. "We'll find a way."


	17. The Silver Arrow

a/n: No clue what's with the formatting in this chapter.  Just don't ask.  Hey — at least I can see what I'm writing this time! Hope I didn't just….jinx myself… *screen goes black* AAAAHHHH!!!! NOOOOO!!! *knocks fervently on wood* *screen comes back* *breathes deeply* THANK YOU!! *screen goes black again* DIIEE!!!!

ANYWAY…last chapter, before my computer began to die (a process it is continuing to now, although now I am being much more careful about what I write) I was going to go on about how I had never really planned for that chapter and had an awful time coming up with a name for it.  With this chapter, I believe, the case was entirely opposite.  This was one that I had planned from the beginning, and I kept in there even after I realized that the "secret admirer" didn't really have much purpose.  A bit of Snape in here too.  Should be fun.    

T H E   S I L V E R   A R R O W

M

onday morning was crisp, clear, cold, and cloudy, like many January mornings.  Breakfast for Siandra was jam and slightly burnt toast.  She didn't think that the golden brown was brown and crispy enough for her so she tried a toasting spell she had learned in the library.  It almost worked, 'With a little practice' said Claire.  But then Claire was the one who wangled the sweeping charm in their dorm so that they had to cover their faces when they rushed in and out of it so as not to get caught in a dust bunny storm.  Professor Pimea had to sort that out and she was _not _happy.  In Defense Against the Dark Arts, Siandra suddenly remembered her unfinished Transfiguration essay.  

            "Lily!" she whispered.

            "Would you like to tell the class what you were whispering about?" asked Professor Pimea, looking up from the chalkboard.

            "Not particularly.  All I said just then was Lily though." Siandra answered.  She would never have dared to tell this to any other teacher, but she did _not _like Professor Pimea and was going to make it known.       

            "Don't call her Lily any more then!" she said, turning back to the chart of numbers.  

            "What am I supposed to call her?  Hippo?" Siandra said quietly to herself.  She contented herself with writing a note Lily.  She already knew all of the homework she would assign anyway.  

Lily, what was the Transfiguration homework?

She crumpled it into a ball and threw it at Lily's notebook.  Lily read it, then got her crow quill out and scrawled a note back to Siandra.  

_You have to describe all of the calculations needed to find out how to turn a brush into a mirror without knowing the spell._

Calculations.  This was Siandra's thing. 

Is there anything about how many words of how many centimeters of parchment?

_No, except it has to be at least a foot, like all of our work._  

Siandra busied herself working on her Transfiguration homework during Defense Against the Dark Arts.  Professor Pimea only called on her once.

            "Siandra." she said.

            "What would you like?"

            "I was going to ask you the answer to the question I just asked.  I assume that you know what it is? Or were you not listening?"

            "Yes, I do know the question." Siandra said.  She had tried being nice to Professor Pimea and it didn't work, "The answer is the mushroom-shaped wand motion."

            "Wrong.  Sennin?" 

            "The mushroom-shaped wand motion?"

            "Correct!"

            Siandra turned and gave Sennin the evil eye.  Sennin returned the sentiment.  She noticed that he was quite good at it.  They did this for a while.  Then Siandra blinked. 

            "Darn!" she said quite loudly and got back to her homework.

            One way or another she finished her Transfiguration homework before class and Professor Comora was very pleased.  

            "Now, class, look at this!  Siandra got a perfect score!"

            Siandra blushed.  

            "Siandra, tell the class how many hours you need to spend on this to get a great mastery work like this."

            "I'd say, about one."

            "Is a nice, quiet working environment best?"

            "I guess, but you don't really _need_ it."  

            "Good, then.  Thank you for your input."

            Lunch was cheese sandwiches with crisps.  Siandra was too busy thinking about the package in four hours that she didn't even notice when Snape sneaked over and performed and over-exaggerated burning spell on the sandwich.

            "Usually when people have practice, they get better, not worse," remarked Betty.

            "It wasn't me, honestly!" she said, as the smoke wafted down the table.        

            She pointed behind her. "It was him!" she exclaimed.  

            There were snorts from around the table.  Siandra looked behind her.  There was no one there.

            "He was there a minute ago, honestly!"

            "Yes, I'm _sure_ he was.  Don't worry, we all make mistakes," consoled Gina.

            "But — but?"

            "Probably Snape did it.  I wouldn't put it past him," said Frank Longbottom, "Er… want my handkerchief?"

            "Your _handkerchief?_What would I do with it?" Siandra asked, bewildered.

            "Er…it's…the, er, _chivalrous _thing to do.  Honest!  We are studying it in History of Magic.  Don't you people listen?"

            "No," responded Siandra, "You do?"

            "Er, yes."

            "And are you being chivalrous for extra credit?"

            "Er, yes.  How did you know?"

            "Guessed."

            "So now what you do is sign here…" he drew a piece of paper out of his school bag.  The bag was green with tassels and a cupcake pattern around the edge.  It was one of the oddest bags she had ever seen.  "To say that I've been chivalrous to you."

            "Acid pop order form?" Siandra read on the sheet she was supposed sign.

            "Oops, wrong thing." He shuffled about for a minute and came up with another form.  He didn't seem to be very orderly.

            "Defense Against Dark Arts Essay on Popular Wand Motions…one hundred percent, very good, Frank, but it's certainly not — "

            "Oops, ah, this is the pesky little thing!"

            "…to say that your needs were satisfied by chivalrous acts — Needs were satisfied? Why would I need a handkerchief after Snape burnt my toast?  Not only that, but do you actually _have _a handkerchief?"

            "No, but maybe I could of conjured one!"

            "And made my toast rise up in flames? We don't learn conjuring charms until fifth year, I asked Professor Leftner myself!" 

            "Ah, well, thought I'd try."

            And speaking of Leftner…

            "Lily, have you figured out how I'm supposed to get out of Leftner early?"

            "No, but I figured out how to tell James. He doesn't really care why, but he likes to figure out how to bend the rules to suit him.  Just say you need to get out of Charms a teensy bit early, okay?"

            "You tell him."

            "No, you."

            "No, you thought of it."

            "But you need to do it!"

            "Oh, fine.  Oy, James!"

            James left Sirius and walked over to Lily and Siandra.

            "Yes?"

            "I need to be out of Charms about ten minutes early, can you do that for me?" Siandra asked.  James looked pleased.

            "No problem, but I'll need your lunch chocolate frog or the card in payment."

            Siandra scowled, "Half a frog.  Wait, let's see the card….Albus Dumbledore!  It's my first one of him!"

            "Half a frog?  How do you plan to divide it?"

            "Er…never mind, I really need this note, okay, _fine.  _One whole frog." 

            She grudgingly handed over the frog.

            "Thank you!" said James curtly, scooping up the frog and dropping it into his mouth and started on the letter.  

            He wrote the following:

Professor Leftner:

          Miss Lorington needs to leave early due to a four o'clock lecture with Ogg and Hagrid.  We sincerely apologize for any inconveniences this might cause you.

Thank you,

Viviana Comora

A letter from a cute burrowing owl dropped onto her head.

            "Post for you!" said someone jollily.  

            "I've noticed." replied Siandra.

            The owl jumped onto the table beside her plate and started hopping up and down on the tablecloth.  There was a chorus of 'awww's from around the table.  Siandra fed it one of the smaller crisps off of her plate.  It was too big for her to swallow, so she just carried it in her mouth.  After she had managed to swallow it, she stuck out her head sideways so Siandra could scratch under her neck.

            "It's so CUTE!" said Lily.

            The message it carried read:

Dear Siandra,

            Thank you for the thank-you note.  Okay, Hagrid will see you at four.  I hope you like your present.

Hagrid and X

Siandra was getting excited.  She looked on the owl's little lightweight collar.  There was a little pendant on it with an initial on it! And…she couldn't make it out. It was smudged some and Siandra couldn't tell if it was an M or an N, or maybe a V. _Oh well, _Siandra thought. _You couldn't have everything in life._  

Professor Jigger in potions class seemed a bit preoccupied today.  He kept asking random students questions about Moira.  

            Gina giggled, "I think somebody likes Moira," she teased as Professor Jigger walked down the isle.

            "Your potion's all wrong!" he accused some Hufflepuff girl.

            "But you didn't tell us anything to put in it!" she protested.  

            "Oh."

            Siandra wanted to be safe from these comments so she decided to make the Boil-Be-Gone potion that they learned in their first week.  While she was stirring the final product of her potion, there was a loud resounding boom.  The walls of the dungeon quivered and quite a few people ducked and covered under their desks.  What had happened was that quite a few people were doing what Siandra was.  Peter had done that also, but tried his luck at a much harder potion.  Not a good idea without teacher supervision.  The whole thing exploded and started bouncing off of the walls.

            "GET OUT!" cried Professor Jigger.  He seemed to have decided that his classroom was more important than his personal matters.  "OUT ONTO THE QUIDDITCH FIELD!  NOW!"

            Professor Jigger stayed inside, presumably stopping the frothing liquid from ricocheting off of the walls.  The rest of the lesson was rather fun.  They put on their winter cloaks and gathered some common potion ingredients from around the grounds and, once Professor Jigger was done explaining about all the rare plants that can be found around the grounds, they took some old brooms out of the shed and played Quidditch with some fallen pinecones.  It ended with heroic capture of the white, enchanted berry by Siandra.  Claire had done some pretty cool scoring too.  

            "It looks like we'll have some pretty good players next year!" complemented Professor Jigger as they ran in after the bell had rung.  

            It was Charms.  Before class, Siandra had to give Professor Leftner the note.  She was very nervous about this, what if Professor Leftner called Professor Comora?  Comora might try to get her out, or cover for her, but she was very nervous.  Maybe she shouldn't give her the note at all.  She quite liked Professor Leftner.  But she decided to give her the note anyways.  It actually was true, she did have to meet Hagrid and he would cover for her, but she _had _realized, from experience that people did not really trust Hagrid, except for Dumbledore, that is.  But she summoned up her courage (did she want to find out about Hagrid and X or not?) and walked up to the teacher, thinking that there would be a lot less trouble if she had checked her schedule before telling Hagrid and X the wrong time to meet her.  

            "Oh, and what lecture is this?  Have you been going off of the grounds?"

            "No…er…I'm…er…interested in potions and asked them to give me a tour of the ingredients found around the castle.  It's the only time they have open.  Sorry about this," she said.

            "Okay, go on then.  We're learning about the incendio spell today.  It conjures fire." Professor Leftner explained to the class as Siandra took her seat. "Since this can be dangerous, I am giving you fireproof glass bowl to practice in.  The spell word is incendio. You need to think of flames very hard when you do this spell.  For this you use the mushroom-shaped wand motion, have you been practicing that in D.A..D.A..?"

            "Yes," answered the class in unison.

            "Siandra, could you please explain it to the class in case some people weren't listening?"

            "Of course.  The motion is basically like drawing a basic mushroom in midair.  A basic mushroom is an oval connected to the ground by a cylinder.  It is one of the more complicated motions.  You do it by drawing a straight edge on the left side.  Then you go up and draw an oval and the straight edge on the right.  Connect it at the bottom.  It should look like…" Siandra did the motion in the air with her index finger.  

            "Perfect, Siandra!  Let's get started!"

            Siandra looked daggers at Sennin.  

            No one was having any luck.

            "ARGH!" shouted Peter. "This is never going to work!"

            He banged his wand furiously on the desk.  A shower of sparks was emitted from the top of the wand and landed on the desk.  Pretty soon the whole desk was engulfed in flame.

            "I've done it! I've done it!" he yelled.

            It was very lucky that the desks were made with fire-enclosing sealant, because pretty soon all the students figured out that (1) the clouded glass bowls did NOT work, because they were so fireproof that there could be no fire in them, and (2) the best way to work the spell was to get very frustrated and prod the table with your wand.   Then they were running around the classroom provoking each other so they could work it. 

            Betty, however, was still trying the mushroom shape with her wand.

            "It's never going to work," taunted Lily.

            "Yes it IS!" yelled Betty, slamming her wand on the table with the 'is'.

            The table burst up in flame.

            "There you go," assured Lily.

            "But — but, that's not the way you — " protested Professor Leftner.

            "ARGH!" she yelled, slamming her wand on her desk, "These students, they…hey…it does work!" she commented as her own desk burst up in fire. "I guess I have…er…_smart _students this year!" she praised, looking at the class running in and out amongst the burning desks, making faces at each other.  

            It was so fun that Siandra almost regretted leaving early, but she did anyway.  She sprinted across the grounds and over to a rather small hut considering some one of Hagrid's stature.  Hagrid was wearing a red plaid shirt with overalls.

            "Er…Hagrid?" she asked.

            "Oh, 'ello!" 

            "Have a nice Christmas, Hagrid?" she asked.

            "Yup.  Hogwar's is always so pretty at Chrismastime.  Yep.  And you?"

            "Yes.  Do you have the package from you and X?"

            "Yep.  I got 'er in 'ere to restrain 'er."

            "Restrain?"

            "Yep, an' 'ere she is!"

            He drew out a shimmering broom from the long box that he had at his feet.  

            "Ohh…" Siandra breathed.

            It was her old Silver Arrow, but it was different.  Hagrid and X had fixed the bent twigs in the tail.  Now they were all perfectly aligned and cut off at exactly the same place.  They had a silvery sheen about them.  The handle was no longer chipped and burnt; it was glazed over, stained darker, and it sparkled brilliantly in the sunlight.  Before, the real silver letters on the top read, in tarnished letters: SI VE   ARR W.  Now they were gleaming and read the whole words.

            "Thank you so much, Hagrid!" she praised, hugging him around the middle.

            "Ah, yer welcome!" he said, going a little red.

            "Would you mind telling me who else helped you?"

            "Yes I would, actually. 'E wouldn't like it.  And anyway it was 'is idea in the first place, although I did give an awful lot of help."

            "He? His?"

            "Shouldn't ah told yer that," growled Hagrid. "I should not 'ave told yer that.  Anyway, you can take 'er now.  Me an' 'im bought 'er from the school for yer. I 'ope yer like it, you must be really special to be getting that, 'e sure thinks yer are."

            "He does?"

            "Shouldn't 'ave told yer that! I will be very quiert now, very, very, quiert." he said as he clamped one giant hand over his mouth. 

            "Are you busy now at all?"

            "No."

            "Then one more thing, Hagrid, please," added Siandra, as he was about to go back in to his cabin. "Could you show me around the grounds and point out some of the plant life around here?" 

  



	18. Fights and Fraudulence

a/n:   Something happy actually happens to Sennin in this chapter! Yay! *claps* 

The formatting for this document, and (seemingly) every other document related to Siandra seems to have completely died.  Yet still, I am happy.  Why?  Because I just successfully broke into my own house, having forgotten my key, the effects of my late night Ramune (a.k.a. tiredness) have worn off, I have Limonata, and (getting back to the matter at hand) this is a very good chapter.  I think that everyone who has read this book so far has especially liked this chapter, perhaps because it has nice characterization, is one of the few chapters that I actually got the inspiration for before I sat down to write it.  You will definitely leave this chapter wondering why on earth everyone doesn't just go with who they want to go with, which indeed is very realistic.  SO, you probably are done hearing my, rather egotistical this time, ranting and want to get on with the story and so I shall let you. 

GRAMMAR ALERT: I have noticed, when reading my own story on FanFic in my occasional boredom, that I actually NEED to check my grammar/spelling prior to uploading it to the site, despite having gone over it before.  This time, all mistakes can be held accountable to me and I will try my very best not to say something like "the all waited anxiously in the Great Hal".  Thank you!

GRAMMAR UPDATE: Um…I was reading through this and found that some of the words are actually covered by an infinite blackness, or go off the page so that I am unable to scroll to them…no, this is not just an excuse...I LIKE editing, but my computer is now being rather…evil.    

F I G H T S   A N D   F R A U D U L E N C E

S

iandra did not wake up bright and early Thursday morning.  She was up late on Wednesday because of Astronomy, but also because she worked on the homework assignment a lot after the class was over.  She and Lily had to do an oral report on Pluto and she was ransacking her dormitory for information into the wee hours of the morning.  She had to be poked with Gina's alarm clock before she would even budge.  She walked down to the Great Hall for breakfast with Claire and Lily and settled into a seat at the end of the table, next to the rest of the first years.  There was something different about this morning though: no one had any food. They chatted about why for a moment.

            "I think the house-elves must've run out of food," commented Leanne.

            "Run out of food?  How could they, Dumbledore makes sure of that!" said Gina. She was right, of course.

            "What are house-elves?" asked Lily.

            "They are these funny little creatures that like to work for people.  They're working in the Hogwarts kitchens.  Hogwarts had the largest amount of them together!" explained Claire.  

            "Wow," said Lily, "And they just _do _all your housework? My mom would sure like one of those!"

            Then Dumbledore raised his hands from his seat at the high table.  Silence fell throughout the room like a tidal wave.  

            "I have a very important announcement for you all," he said rather glumly, "That this year, by popular demand, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry will be holding the ANNUAL SPRING DANCE!"

            There was a cascade of cheers down all four of the house tables.

            "Yes!" said Gina, "A dance!  This will be so fun!"

            "And," Dumbledore continued, "All years will be able to attend.  The spring dance is held during Easter Vacation, so I suggest that you get your partners before then.  Thank you." 

            And the dishes were now filled with food.

            Not everyone was overjoyed at the prospect of the upcoming dance.  

            "I'm not going," Claire said resignedly during Potions class, "And if I do come, which will just be for the food, I won't get a partner."

            Siandra was doubtful about this because it seemed as though everyone else was getting a partner or at least thinking about whom they'd like to ask.  If Siandra knew Claire, she'd not want to be the only one either not going or without a partner.

            By the end of the day, the big news was that Gina had asked Sirius to the dance and he said 'yes'.  Siandra, Betty, Claire, and Lily found this out for themselves Thursday afternoon at five when Gina came in giggling.

            "Spit it out, then," coaxed Betty.        

            "Well, I went on this walk…" 

            "And?" asked Betty.  She was very anxious to hear the news that Gina had.  She knew Gina very well and she knew she couldn't keep it in very long.  

            "Well, I will tell you that I asked out some one," Gina said very slowly and blushed.  "I won't say any more."

            The rest of the dormitory was immediately interested.

            "You don't have to tell me, but you can if you want, and I'd really like to know," encouraged Lily.

            Gina fell onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. "Sirius," she said dreamily.  Everyone else jumped up and looked excited.

            "Do you know what you're going to wear?" asked Betty.

            "Hmm…. I have these nice navy blue satin robes, I think that they set off my hair and my eye color.  I'll get them out…" Gina started digging through her trunk while a figure came clomping up the stairs and swung open the door.

            "SIRIUS!" it said, "SNAPE IS GOING OUT WITH — Oh, it's girl's.  Sorry about that," said James and rushed away.

            "Hey!" said Lily, "Tell us who Snape's going out with, then!"

            "SIRIUS!" he yelled, obviously in the common room.  The girl's dormitory listened very intently.  "Snape is going to the Spring Dance with Anna!"

            "Anna?" asked Betty, "Are they talking about Anna Wilkes?"

            Anna Wilkes was a sort of pretty Slytherin girl.  It depends what your view on 'pretty' is.  She looked very evil to Siandra.  She had wavy long shiny black hair and inky black eyes, like Snape.  Always, under her black robes, she wore a golden snake armlet with glowing red eyes.  Siandra had a suspicion that she might be part veela, or perhaps all veela.  Teachers always called on Anna, even Professor Comora did.  Siandra didn't understand why she even went to Hogwarts if the teachers were so into "distractions to the learning environment".  Anna definitely qualified as a distraction.  

            "Has to be, I can see why Snape's going with her.  She's probably the best girl in Slytherin.  I think quite a lot of them look like hags and are just as mean," said Gina.

            "That's not very nice," said Lily.

            "But they're Slytherins! _They're _sure not nice," protested Gina.

            "I suppose so," said Lily, thinking about it.  They were all getting antsy over the prospect of the coming ball, and also the fact that neither of them had partners yet.

            The next day, Lily was asked out.  Siandra realized this in Herbology.  Lily sat in front of her and she was paired with Gardenia.

            "Someone's asked out Lily!" said Gardenia cheerfully.

            "Is this true?" Siandra asked Lily.  She thought that she'd be the first on Lily's list that she would tell about this, besides Claire.

            Lily giggled, "Yes, but I will tell you who later."

            "Why did she tell you?" Siandra asked Gardenia.

            "Er…she didn't tell me, I guessed!"  Gardenia said proudly, "I'm really good at telling these types of things!"

            Siandra didn't know it, but she was in for a big surprise.  When she came out of History of Magic, the big surprise was to be revealed.  Binns was boring, as usual.  Today he was treating them to a lecture on the Triumphs and Failures of the Triwizard Tournament. It was a very interesting topic, but not the way Binns was teaching it.

            One Hufflepuff boy in particular was very curious about Binns.  He was convinced that he had a 'better side' and if he prodded him enough that Binns would show it.

            "Is it true that your real name's Bartholomew?  I found that out when I was eaves-dropping by the staff room!" he said very loudly.

            Bartholomew Binns stopped for a brief moment.

            " — and a convention of warlocks started to seriously consider outlawing such a dangerous sport for such young wizardry as — "  Binns rattled on monotonously.   

            Siandra napped during the rest of the class and when the bell rang, she gathered up her books into her bag and scurried out of the dusty room. 

            Someone tapped her on the shoulder.  It was James.   

            "Er…" he said, "Meet me in…class four o nine…after lunch… okay?" 

            "What?" asked Siandra, there were too big of spaces between the words for her to understand what he meant.

            "Meetmeinclassfouronineafterlunchokay?" he asked.

            "Okay!" agreed Siandra and hurried off.  What could James possibly want with her at four?  Maybe he was going to help her with Transfiguration.  That would be good, because he was quite good at it, she thought, and ran into the lunchroom.  Lunch was bagels and cream cheese with the usual iced pumpkin juice.  Siandra ate her bagel with ease and chatted with Lily about Pluto.  She saw James at the end of the table wink at her as he finished his bagel and run up the stairs.  Siandra scarfed down her bagel and went to hurry after James.

            "Oy!" said Lily indignantly, "Where are you going?  Are you following James?  Why are you — but wait — you — didn't he go with — hey! That's not the way to the common room!"        

            Siandra ran off behind James.  She was running over the thing that he had said to her.  Had he said to meet her at four o'nine?  But it was after lunch and it was only twelve ten and he said after lunch.  Siandra then supposed that he meant the class number.  It must be one of those unused classrooms on the fourth floor.  Siandra climbed the winding flight of stairs up to a corridor on the fourth floor.  She followed the golden sign that said 410 — 400 and she soon came to room 409.  There was no one there. It was very deserted there.  There were a few powder blue puffy chairs, a chalkboard, and a cabinet with an ivy design in the woodwork.  She sat down at one of the chairs to wait.  She didn't have to wait very long.  James soon poked his head in.  

            "You there?" he asked.

            "No," Siandra said sarcastically.  

            "Good.  I wanted to make sure you found the room all right," he said.  Siandra brought out her wand.  While she was waiting she had been practicing the right frame of mind to do Transfiguration in.  She hoped he was going to teach her the Cross-Species Switch.  It was very advanced and one of her favorites.

            "Nice room, isn't it?" he asked, "I like the ivy on the cabinet.  Aren't the chairs a pretty color?  I really like that nice, dusty chalkboard.  How about you?"

           He seemed to be avoiding Transfiguration.  What if he forgot about how to do it and wanted to ask _her _for help?  She decided to get straight to the point.

            "What about that Cross-Species Switch, then?" she asked a little hesitantly.  He turned around from admiring the cabinet and looked a little confused. 

            "Say what?" he asked.

            "Well, didn't you come to coach me on Transfiguration?" asked Siandra curiously.  If it wasn't to teach her, then why did he ask her to meet him in such a secluded place?  Could he possible be —

             "I…er…the reason why I came here is to…er…that'd be to…er…ask you if you'd like to…er…go…um…" he stammered.  Then Siandra thought he must have decided that he'd like to get it over with and went super fast, "Wanna go to the dance with me?" he asked, finally, blushing furiously.  

            Now it was Siandra's turn to stutter.

            "Er…" she thought about it and thought that she'd better ask one question to clarify

 the situation, "Don't you want to go with Lily? I thought that you had a crush on her!" she asked rather quickly.

            "No, I — hey!  How did you know that?" he asked indignantly.

            "Oh, please," said Siandra "It's so obvious."

            "Well, she's already going with someone else, as you've heard.  And, I don't really suppose that she actually likes me back, and I know that no one really likes being second choice, but I really like you too and you are really nice, and smart, and I promise that I won't stare at Lily the whole time.  So will you go with me?  Please?" asked James.

            Siandra thought this over.  He would probably stare at Lily quite a lot of the time because he had only promised not all of the time.  Also, he might not dance with her at all and spend the whole time plotting with Sirius.  But then Gina and Sirius really liked each other so they would dance the whole time.  But neither Remus nor Peter was going with anyone yet so he might just chat with them instead.  But he was also nice, smart, and funny and pretty cute too and she felt sorry that Lily didn't like him.  Plus, he had really nice compliments about her.  But still….She had made up her mind.

            "Okay," she said happily, "I'll go with you!"

            James was very happy about this.

            "Thank you so much!" he cried joyfully and danced out of the room.  Siandra walked back to the dormitory feeling very happy that she had gotten herself a nice partner for the Spring Dance.  

            "I'm still not going!" said Claire resignedly once Siandra had situated herself on her perfectly made bed and started to do her Charms homework.

            "Everyone else is, though, Claire!" protested Siandra, looking up from the incendio papers the class had to write.  Professor Leftner had given them a lecture on how their personal versions of incendio weren't going to work.  The issue of this particular spell had arisen once again because they were doing their half-yearly review a little late and Professor Leftner and found out that they still could not work a proper incendio.  If they actually stuck their wand in a real fireplace with no fire-containing spells like their desks had, they could say good-bye to their wand, unicorn hair and all.

            "Not everyone!  Just in Gryffindor first-years, Molly, Betty, Leanne, and you and me still have not been asked!" Claire continued.  Betty wouldn't last long without a partner, Siandra thought, Claire knew Betty well and Siandra thought that she knew too. There were plenty of boys with a crush on Betty, even though most of them were Hufflepuffs that she didn't even know.  Betty was very nice and rather pretty.  She was of medium height, rather thin, and she had moderately long, straight, brown hair.

            "Well, I am going with someone and I know Betty won't last long and neither will Leanne or Molly, probably!  Anyway, it will be fun!  You don't even have to dance with a partner on the fast dances and on the slow ones you can just sit and talk.  I'm sure not everyone will be dancing and you'll find someone that'll just sit with you.  We're all going to be going, I think!" explained Siandra.   Claire was one of her best friends and she hoped that she was going to the dance with her.

            "Well, I talked to Betty and she agreed that she probably wouldn't be participating in this silly ball-thing either," she continued proudly.  "And as for Leanne and Molly, they can do what they want, but me and Betty will be here on the twenty-fifth practicing charms.  I am certain of this!"

            Siandra was certain that she'd find both Betty and Claire huddling in the Gryffindor table at the time of the dance with two partners, but she remained silent.

            "And what did you say?" asked Claire, "You were asked out?" 

            "Er," said Siandra, "Yes, I was."

            "And?" asked Claire.  Even if she was not going, it seemed as though she was interested in the news about the ball.

            "And what?" asked Siandra.  She knew Claire wanted to know who the lucky person was that was going with Siandra, but she was a little nervous and was putting off telling Claire even though she was her best friend.

            "Well, tell us who it is, then!" said Claire anxiously.

            "James," Siandra whispered very quietly.

            "Ooh!" said Claire excitedly. "He's cute!  That's really good!  If I were going I'd probably choose him, but I'm not going and he's taken anyway.  There goes my one reason to go to that dance!" 

            Siandra groaned.  She knew that Claire was just teasing her about James being her only reason to go since Siandra was so into getting Claire to go to the ball.  

            Siandra was about to find out exactly what Betty was thinking of when she pledged that she wouldn't go to the ball.  The next day Siandra was in the girl's dormitory still working on the same essay for Charms.  Professor Leftner had insisted on it to be their longest essay ever, so they would take the length of the longest essay they had done before that and make this one longer.  Siandra did not think that this was fair at all to people who had worked hard to do extra.  The people who had worked harder before, had to work harder than the people who goofed off.  Siandra's longest essay was two meters long.  She had resolved to do this essay two meters and one millimeter long.  It was, after all, longer than the longest she had done previously and she doubted that anyone besides Lily had ever done anything longer.

            Siandra was working on that still, while trying to convince Claire to go to the ball.  It was getting to be some sort of daily thing.

            "As I said!" said Claire, "I'll have Betty with me! We'll have a blast together!  We'll work on each other's homework, and go visit Hagrid, and play Shuntbumps on the Quidditch field!"

            Siandra did think this sounded like an awful lot of fun, but she would rather go to the dance and do what Claire planned on some hot Friday afternoon.  She was about to say so when the door burst open and in came Betty, panting, but rather excited.

            "Whew!" she said and collapsed in the bed. "For only March it's sure hot outside!"

            Claire walked over to where the pitcher of water was in a brass pot by the windowsill and poured Betty some in a porcelain glass with snowflakes dancing around on it.

            "Well, me and Samuel are going to the dance," she said.  There was a rather tense moment before this sunk in. 

            "WHAT?" asked Claire furiously, "NOT ONLY DO YOU BREAK THE PROMISE AND DECIDE TO _GO_ TO THE DANCE, BUT YOU ALSO GO WITH SOME RAVENCLAW THAT NEITHER OF US REALLY KNOW?  WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?" 

            Betty seemed extremely surprised by the outburst coming from the nice friend who had just filled up her teacup.  Siandra was surprised too.  She hadn't thought that Claire was that upset by the dance thing.  She thought that Claire was just peeved about it.  Maybe there was some underlying fact here that Siandra had missed.  

            "What?" asked Betty calmly.  She was not a very assertive person and had the gift of being very calm some times.  Siandra thought she would have been yelling too. "I may go with whomever I like and if you don't know whom he is, then how do you know that he is a Ravenclaw then?  And anyway, I just found someone I liked, don't get all upset!  This has nothing to do with you, I'm sorry I didn't stay with you, but as I said, by going I don't mean to be insulting you.  I still like you and I think we'd have had fun together too.  Why don't we just save what we planned for some empty Saturday?  The dance only happens on the twenty-fifth anyway."

            "WHY ARE YOU EVEN GOING WITH SAMUEL?" yelled Claire.  Apparently Betty's calmness was not contagious, "TELL ME THAT!"

            It seemed as though Betty had given up trying to control herself, "WHY NOT?  OKAY, I'LL GIVE YOU REASON, HE'S REALLY NICE, AND HE LIKES ARITHMANCY JUST LIKE ME AND HE'S REALLY GOOD AT QUIDDITCH!" Betty shouted. 

            "HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW THOSE THINGS?  ARITHMANCY HAPPENS IN THIRD YEAR AND QUIDDITCH — "

            Siandra thought that she'd better walk away quickly and silently so she did, trusting that Betty and Claire wouldn't miss her and closed the double doors silently. As she walked down the staircase to the common room she bumped into Lily.

            "Can you tell me who you're going out with right now?  Please?  You told me that you'd tell me today yesterday!" asked Siandra after Lily muttered 'sorry'. 

            "Okay, it's er…. er….um…ah…er…Sennin." Lily said, blushing bright red just before Siandra exploded.

            "SENNIN?" she roared, "WHY HIM?  THERE ARE PLENTY OF NICE BOYS AROUND AND YOU JUST HAD TO CHOOSE THE ONE THAT IS PERFECTLY HORRIBLE TO ME?  HAVE YOU NOTICED HOW HE ALWAYS ANSWERS MY QUESTIONS AND HOW HE JUST LOVES THAT HORRIBLE PROFESSOR PIMEA?"

            "WHAT?" asked Lily, "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM AT ALL!  HE'S NICE AND CUTE AND POLITE AND HE REALLY LIKES ME TOO!  AND I SUPPOSE THAT YOU THINK THAT YOU HAVE THE PERFECT DATE THEN? WHO ARE YOU GOING WITH? NO ONE?"

            "JAMES!" yelled Siandra.        

            "WHAT?  EXCUSE ME, BUT HE IS CERTAINLY NOT THE PERFECT PERSON YOU THINK HE IS!   HE IS ALWAYS MAKING TROUBLE AND HE'S…er…. STEALING MY SOCKS ALL THE TIME!" shouted Lily.

              "YOUR SOCKS?  THIS IS NOTHING TO RIDICULE ME ABOUT!  JUST BECAUSE HE LIKES ME AND NOT YOU!"  

            Siandra knew that this wasn't true because James had told her so himself.  But at the moment she didn't really care.  The odd thing was, she felt there was something about herself getting so mad that she just hadn't told herself about.  It sounded weird, so she forgot about it.  

            "HE DOES NOT LIKE YOU AND NOT ME!" yelled Lily indignantly.

            "OH, SO YOU WANT HIM TO LIKE YOU?  I THOUGHT YOU TOLD ME THAT HE WAS NOTHING BUT A TROUBLE-MAKER AND A SOCKS-STEALER!" retorted Siandra.  

            "NO I MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT! I JUST WANT….HIM TO NOT LIKE YOU!" replied Lily.

            "WHY?  IF YOU DON'T LIKE HIM AT ALL THEN WHY DOES IT MATTER THAT HE DOESN'T LIKE ME IF YOU ARE SO MAD AT ME?" asked Siandra.  It was starting to get confusing.  "I'M GOING DOWN TO THE COMMON ROOM TO SIT!"

            "AND SO AM I!"

            Pretty soon Claire and Betty joined them.  All four sat fuming in their puffy chairs by the fire.  They sat alone without anything to do for quite a while.  A few of the older students stared peculiarly at them for a while wondering what happened.  Siandra felt that odd relaxation in her jaw that happens when you have been really tense and shouting for a while and you finally stop.  Her head was spinning a little too, something that happens after yelling madly also.  Then Arthur Weasley came in the portrait hole.

            "Stupid dance," muttered Claire and walked up to him. "You can go to the dance with me!" she commanded.

            Arthur hadn't managed to find anyone else, "Yes, okay," he said rather timidly.

            "That's done then!" said Claire a little too loudly and marched off to her scarlet puffy chair right in front of the fire.  Their awkward silence was interrupted yet again by Molly, this time, climbing past the fat lady. 

            "Jeez!" exclaimed Molly, "What the heck happened here?" 

            "It was her fault!" Claire exclaimed, pointing at Betty and breaking the silence, "She broke a promise she made to me and she decided to go with some useless pretty boy from Ravenclaw!"

            "What?" interrupted Betty, "Just because I don't want to boycott this stupid thing and sit around and do nothing, she gets totally mad at me!"

            "It was also Lily's fault!" interrupted Siandra, "She goes out with this person who is so mean to me and doesn't even tell me and then she makes me feel bad because I go out with someone who is nice and that I like!"

            "Excuse me!" exclaimed Lily, "It was you who made me feel bad about dating who I went with, I only didn't tell you because I thought you'd get mad!  He's perfectly fine!"

            Claire and Betty were throwing insults at each other too.  Molly started backing away from them.

            "Okay," she said, "I think I'll go work on homework with Leanne, shall I? Honestly, I am starting to agree with Claire, this whole ball thing is messed up, honestly…"

            "Actually," interrupted Claire.  It seemed that she had trouble going back to a normal voice.  This one was still a bit loud and caused some fifth years to stare. "I am going to the ball with someone."

            "Who?" asked Molly, intrigued.

            "Arthur Weasley."

            "Did you ask him or did he ask you?" snapped Molly, turning around.  Now she was getting involved in the big fight.  Gina came in looking dreamy.

            "Isn't this ball thing just lovely?" she asked, staring at something on the ceiling.

                "**_NO_**!" yelled everyone in unison.


End file.
